Can't You See
by Elizabeth Cicero
Summary: Eight years lost, retaliation for a brother's life lost, and Florida's heaviest crime ring. Amid all of this, can Agent Sheldon Jeffery Sands and CIA Psychologist Lily Hanson find what they lost with the death of her brother Tom, and the breaking of ties?
1. Prologue

**Cant You See**

**-Prologue- **

Chicago

_August 14__th__, 1979

* * *

  
_

"_Shel, where are we going?! Dad's gonna be so mad at you!" _

"_Shut up and stay close, we're almost there…" With a spirit of possibility and a whining seven year old in tow, he skipped rocks along the abandoned tracks of the 'L' line heading out of the city limits. For three weeks they'd been stuck in the hotel room, watching repeated cartoons and ordering as much room service as could fit through the door, but none of it was interesting anymore. Seeking adventure, the duo had skipped out per demands of the elder sibling, and used their father's hard earned cash to hop the Yellow Line out of the city and into a town called Skokie. "It's so hot…why don't we go back and get ice cream? Come on Jeff…" _

"_No! Stop being a baby."_

_Hot headed and distracted to insanity by the dirt in her shoes, Shane ran full force between the rusted metal tracks and shoved the slight of her brother's back, proving herself just as much a dictator as he could be. "God, you moron…we're almost there, just chill out."_

"_We better be…and I'm not a baby!" And he was right on both fronts; they had so made it their destination when the sun began to set down across the edges of the city. Having forgotten her anger over him, Shane clung to the familiar place at the back of her older brother's shirt, tiptoeing towards the rustic building behind him. Sheldon had seen the shop almost a month before on their train ride into Chicago, and knew that as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he was coming back for what he wanted, with or without his dad's approval. The shadowed doorway was struck with the glint of late sunlight as they stepped inside, his eyes darting all around in wonderment, utter joy. The store was deserted save for a harried and disgruntled man sitting behind the high counter, and as the two approached him, he growled with a smirk. "You tikes lost or somethin'?"_

"_No." Sheldon replied sarcastically, eluding his position of pre-teen attitude. "We're here to buy."_

"_Buy what, kid?" _

_Not having a sure sense of their stock, he let his eyes scatter the distance of the room, seeing six strings and Telecasters, as many Gibsons' as could fit, but only a single instrument lingering in the back of his mind. He wasn't sure if they would even have one, yet something told him with just a few more glances there would be a…Ah. There it is…he turned back to the man with coy knowledge. "That 61' Fender Strat on the other wall, the black one…how much is it?"_

"_More than your allowance will ever allow you boy."_

"_Try me," he tested, pulling his wallet from the back pocket of his Levi's and smirking at the older man. Shane still clung to his shirt desperately, afraid of the dim light of this place, the cigarette smoke wafting in the air, and the man's hungry voice. "It's 2,500."_

_Moving down to pull the bills from the worn leather, Sheldon counted out what he needed and tossed it onto the glass counter. The man's eyes grew thick with surprise and he took one last puff from his cigarette before putting it out and walking across the dark space to where the guitar clung to the wall. In a hushed whisper Shane dug her fist into his back, "Jeff, dad is gonna kill you!"_

"_Let him try, Shy." Moments later the guitar was resting between his palms, the only thing he had ever wanted, the only thing he felt he could ever need in this world. Its strings were taut with a desire to be strummed, a solid body that deserved rough care, just like a beautiful girl. And even at eleven, he knew exactly what that sort of care would entail. After nods and thanks were given, he and Shane darted back out onto the wiry road heading into the city. 'This is it man…this is all I need…this is all I'll ever need…'_


	2. Tequila Loves Me

**Tequila Loves Me**

Mexico City, November 1st, 2003

_Dia de los Muertos, 5:30

* * *

  
_

Don't drink the water. Just the tequila. Possibly the Cruzan Rum.

"_I'm just walking my beat, friend…Mexico's my beat, and I'm walking it. I throw shapes, and they catch em'. Set em' up and watch them fall…"_

"_**That's wonderful dickwad, but where the hell am I supposed to send your guy?" **_

"_Have him meet me at the bullfight at 5 p.m."_

"_**Fine." **_

The dark images, the sounds ended with the snap of a cell phone, when Sands' mind finally returned to the reality now surrounding him. Smoke stuffing his nose, the sting of close fire, screams, chants, and the whisper of a new friend, con man, a salesman at that. "Senor? Senor!"

"What now?"

"Tenemos que ir, la ciudad en el fuego!"

"We're not going anywhere, kid. Kick me that phone…_ teléfono." _

"Claro." The boy, no more aged than ten lifted the bullet proof phone from the dusty pavement and knelt to place it between the grasp of Sands' good hand, on his wound free arm. He had been ungratefully thankful to have the attachment of the kid in his hour of need, whether he would ever admit to it, or resolve in the matter of appreciation towards him or not. Having someone there to make sure no more seriously fucked Barillo sieves attempted to take what was left of his body, was one good thing. At least not until a certain agent decided to finally answer a phone, their phone, _her_ phone. Until that time came though, he was prepared to relax as calmly as possible against the wall, a color which was unknown to him, and a texture which was only stucco against his back. He kicked his boots out wildly in front of him, the bullet severing his right thigh probably leaving a handsome enough trail that again, he couldn't see worth a damn. The heat of the sun though, told him it was nearing the late day now and that soon the festivities would be forgotten, the revolution over.

Sands had somehow already begun to slowly manipulate his senses, just enough really to know that the kid was sitting next to him, probably in similar fashion, and scratching some body part. _Ah Christ…I can't do this much longer. _The stickiness against each of his cheeks was and could only be blood, and the more he moved, the more it drained from the gaping holes hidden behind his aviators. _There's nothing there, fucking whore. Took the single most fucking important…_

_Cold hard bitch!_

_Just a kiss on the lips,_

_And I was on my knees…_

_I'm waiting…give me…_

"Yeah?" He answered the phone swiftly, praying to god it was the call he needed and not something furthering him into the claws of hell for this round. But he heard her voice and relaxed back against the wall, curling his legs closer to him and seething air between his teeth. "For fuck sake, where have you been?!"

"_Don't start with me; I've been trying to hold clear behind the capital for three hours! These little scum fucks wouldn't quit firing!"_

"You hit?"

"_Oh come on Shel, it's me you're talking to. How are you holding up?" _

"Aside from the fact that it's the middle of the goddamn day and I can't see a thing…oh I'm lovin' it all Shanie!"

"_I found a ditch with a full tank outside Rosalita's...you're still in front of the bank?"_

"Damned if I know, I'm guessing at this point."

"_Just fucking stay put, I'm on my way!" _

Dropping the phone to the ground again, he leaned his head back to the wall; let his mind wander half unexpectedly over the last part of the day. He had known something was going sideways hours before it did, that phone call with Shane, the last one before…_everything_.

"_Listen, I cannot do everything by myself. I need someone to go in there with me!" _

"_**You have an inside man!" **_

"_No! I lost my inside man, probably dead. And Cucuy greedy turd that he is ratted me out and has disappeared!"_

"_**Jesus, Shel!"**_

"_Plus, I'm pretty sure the cartel is shadowing me. Now listen, I have got a swell group of guys intercepting Marquez' army, but they've got no guns!"_

"_**Shit!" **_

"_Now listen, I want you to understand me! This is no time to screw the pooch because this is supposed to be the big dance number!"_

"_**Fuck you, bro!" **_

"_All right? Hello? Hello you there?"_

"_Okay…okay…I'm going to freak right out…"

* * *

  
_

_The slide of his short fingers across the strings made a harmonic call along the deck of the station. They sat side by side, Shane's feet meeting his knees on the cement block, a whizzing train car going by with the melody he was already creating for himself. They were the only two waiting in the purple darkness of late day. "What do you think, Shy?" _

_She rolled her eyes impatiently and nuzzled her face into her brother's shoulder, "You stink actually…"_

"_Well what do you know, you're only a kid! One day man…" he began, stroking the sides of his new possession, the gleam of its blackened tint against the final heat of summer, "One day I'll sound just like Jimi…just like Ronnie…"

* * *

  
_

A damaged skid of tires to the curb beside them awoke Sands and startled the young boy, with only one of them aware of the vehicle before them, although without sight the other still recognized the haunting sound of his little sister's inability to drive. And then there were two boots hitting the street, jogging, running over to his side, her small hands placed accordingly on his cheeks, and finally her voice. "Oh my god, I can't believe what that bitch did to you!" She stroked the blood stains at his cheekbones, wincing at the barely visible holes through the tint of his glasses, and also noting the bullet sunken into his right arm which he held protectively, and his left thigh, deep and proving so with a generous amount of blood already lapping onto the sidewalk. "Come on," she finally began to conclude, tucking her arm under his and helping him stand at least wobbly enough to be above her height still, and began to slowly move him towards the old car. "We can't stay in town Shane."

"Don't you think I already know that? I'm gonna head for the coast…"

His tongue clenched at the roof of his mouth, emitting slights groans and bouts of pain as he hobbled across the cement and she lowered him into the passenger's seat. "Good girl." Turning away from the seat a ways she finally noticed the shadowing kid, and with a meek smile whispered something under her breath to Sands that he could hardly discern, "Huh?"

"The mini protégé you've hustled…what's his deal?"

"Oh shit, I almost forgot. There's no way he can come with us now."

"Ya think? Send him home." She slammed the door, and walked around to the driver's side while Sands called the boy over to the open window. The child followed, taking hold of the man's lowered hand, tugging at his glove a ways. "Listen amigo, can't take ya any further with us, it's too dangerous. But I need you to stay here and kick some ass for me!"

"Si Senor!"

"Adios kid…"

And so it was that Shane and Sheldon Sands escaped another case, one more in a stature of health than the other, but both so similarly acute, so mutually keen in the matter that they were prepared for its demise, the beginning of the end for one career. They would drive to the coast, get a room, call Jack back in Washington and set the score finally, be done with it. But first Sands had one simple request of his sister. "I really need a fucking drink. Can you stop for some tequila?"

"Not good for the bleeding ya know…"

"Eh screw it, I've bled before. Besides, tequila wouldn't do me any harm; she and I have a very _precious_ relationship." He leaned into the worn and heated leather seat, tugging off his gloves, his belt, guns, boots, everything he could manage to get away from his skin. He didn't have a clue what was in front of him, he didn't know what was around him, he couldn't tell if Shane had been holding back any of her estranged tears yet, he couldn't even say what was going to happen to him. But there was one thing he was sure about, "What kind of shit are you listening to. Christ Shy, find some real music for me."

"Why don't you jus- " She stopped herself abruptly, glancing over to see the near scowl, but angered pout on her brother's face. His sunglasses kept his condition intact and under wraps for now, "Sorry. Let me find something." With Johnny Cash spilling out through the wind, Sands able to relax enough to fall into a deep sleep, and Shane driving as fast as she could out of town, there was still some sort of hope for them. Somewhere in the last glimpse of the Mexican sunset over the hills.


	3. Square One

**Square One **

C.I.A Headquarters - Washington, D.C

_2 months later – _January 2004

* * *

"Can you state your name and status of affairs for the record please?"

No answer. Quiet dispensed throughout the sound proof room.

His right boot rested on the damaged leather of his left, the thin shag paper burning at the southeast corner of his lip, and Sands' unorthodox approach to satisfy the agency's dress code kept the board of directors on the brink of their chairs throughout the hour. He was never unarmed, with there being little exception for his moment of debrief. The loose cotton of his t-shirt was expressed as _'well worn'_ by the miniscule holes across the breast and abdomen, the comfort of multi-recycled denim, and his grade-A tinted aviators fashioned as a barrier to his battle scars, made up the man they had come to know, cherish, and above all else loathe.

"Agent?"

"Christ Dane…you've known my name every day for the last ten years of your life, my rank, each and every goddamn mission you've kicked my ass into…you even know my pillow talk preference…" Unable to wink at his sly remark, he simply grinned devilishly in the direction he heard the voice coming from, "Why is it so fucking important that I restate the facts that you're shuffling around in that manila folder of yours?" He didn't have to see the folder, to know it was there now. That crème pocket that decided the fate of an officer's career.

"Sands." He paused to take a hearty drag from the cigarette, scratch his lower stomach hungrily, and to focus on the steady light source at a distance in front of him. The white shadows casting over his lenses nearly burned with imaginary heat, there were windows in this room, he remembered it like the back of his hand. "Fine, I'll be submissive just this once. But only for you, pet." Another grin, another drag, and finally an exhausted breath as he began to succumb to the necessary. "My name is Agent Sheldon Jeffery Sands"…_Christ, that just sounds fucked now…_he thought to himself as he continued, "I'm a field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, gentleman. And of course…any sugar tits within the close proximity here, only wish I could see them." He chuckled before putting out the butt of his smoke, kicking his boots further away, and breathing the cloud of toxin into the stiff air above him. "You all sent me down to fuck around in the sun for a month, tease Barillo with my guns, without having ever actually done your job."

"We are aware that our sources overlooked the very nature of Agent Ajedrez's collaboration, her involvement with the Cartel went under our radar."

"Looks like your radar's a little outdated then boys, because it cost me every last fucking nerve ending worth a damn to my occupation."

"Jeff, despite the odds and your will to continue being uncooperative with procedure, you did still finish the assignment. Barillo was terminated, his forces, his inner moles, all of them. Ajedrez' met her fate by your doing, the President was brought to safety even, all of this done under your rather…_nonconformist_ approach to our agency's methods. So for this we aren't authorized to pass anymore than the occasional judgment over your fetish with slaughtering cooks…"

He shifted in his seat at the thought of his previous escapades, "What can I say…the pork was too damn good."

"Ah huh…well, we take that thing pretty seriously here in the States bud. If you recall…"

"Look Dane -- _and_ those of you who can see me while I can't spot a single fucking thing in front of my hand -- I was shucked into Mexico for the sole purpose of clearing your own asses for a few months, and then a few months became an enigma of thirteen. I got close to a perjuring AFN chick, screwed myself at a thousand point blanks with the wrong cocksuckers, and lay awake in a dark room while a doctor with elementary school knowledge of pain drilled my eyes and everything attached onto the floor beneath me. I get it, I'm your shameful link, I've fucked all of your jobs with this one, but you keep forgetting…it's only a matter of days now before I'm tossed onto the street. The last I heard there was a 20/20 vision mandate in this agency…"

No one spoke, they all sat and watched the man who had in more instances than not, gotten the task required of him done. He wasn't the most beloved agent they had, but he was the craziest little shit they had ever known, rumors of child abuse and an unconventional past life having played into the psyche of which Sheldon Sands really was, or at least who Washington thought he was. "Agent Sands?" There was a youthful voice from the long end of the table before him, the table he could only imagine and mock within his mind, and do little with otherwise. It was a man's voice, lesser in age than him, yet still one he couldn't place in the filing of faces or names he'd known before going into darkness. "We want to help you."

"Help me? Kid's a rookie huh, Dane?"

"Sands, this is Jake Murphy, head of our Psyche unit in Boston."

"Oh good, you've finally managed to come to terms with my instability. Well _Dr._ Murphy…" he began, cocking his head in the general direction of the man's tone with a whimsical expression, "Where's the couch and ink blots?"

"Agent Sands, I've come to assist in working out a schedule with our Staff Psychologist here in D.C., Dr. Hanson. We are fully aware of your situation and are ready to…"

"Hold it, kid. You can save yourself a lot of time, I'm well past the point of professional help."

"It's not a request this time Sands," Dane nearly growled while watching the confusion boil across his face, the façade of disgust, "We're telling you."

"You're telling me…that I have to go see a doctor once a week to fix an unsolvable fucking wound?"

"Actually Sheldon…" the younger doctor began from the corner of the room, while the other agents and directors in the room bowed their heads nervously, "It's twice a week."

They were all expecting it, something fearful to come over in the space between Sands' chair and their table, and so it did. Bolting the soles of his boots to the wood floor, he stood up and kicked the chair back a good twenty feet, allowing it to skid and tumble in echoed force. There was a swagger to his walk as he covered the footage to where he could hear the man's ragged, terrified breath emitting. He reached the table ledge before him, resting his hands down against the scuffed top and leaned into the man's face, the heat from his breath warming the space between the two. With a lack of warning or need for one, Sands reached his hands up and began to stroke over the man's features, nose, cheeks, forehead, eyelids, trying to partially examine his shameless mold. "Such a pretty face, Jake. Hell…I believe you could even tempt me to turn my sexual preference around…" A few snickers were made to which Sands responded gladly with more strokes of Murphy's face, until finally he leaned in close to his mouth, the nervous guessing of the surrounding officers falling into the air, " It's too bad none of your esteemed colleagues warned you about me though…"

With a shattering rage Sands' fist swung back in the black space he felt and landed on the deep underside of the doctor's jaw, splitting bone and creating a stir of shouting. Jake fell back to the floor as his chair swiveled beneath the blow, and yelped for salvation of any kind, blood carefully oozing from the corner of his mouth. Sands' stood laughing it off for a moment before explaining, "It's Sands' you fucker…not _Sheldon _and never Ishmael!"

When he turned away from the group with a scowl and an extended arm from Shane, he heard his victim's ragged breath from the floor, "I t-thought he was blind?"


	4. Psychobabble

**Psychobabble**

Dr. Hanson's Office - Washington, DC

Appointment #1 -_January 10__th__, 2004

* * *

  
_

He had wanted Shane to walk him in, but had to accept the arm of the man he had put in the hospital a week prior, a man who still seemed pliable to be his 'friend', if Sands would so let him. Which he never would consent, he wasn't a fan of doctors, especially ones he couldn't see to trust. He was led up the front steps of the a building, the air ice cold against his cheeks, but his jacket keeping his bones warm enough at least. Inside it was warmer, hot breath resounding through the space between him and a young child's voice, an older woman's voice, and his own escort's. Everything was sound, taste, and smell to him, touch even was a stretch at times.

"Right this way Agent Sands," the man insisted, handing his off into the gentle hands of what felt like a girl, a young girl, and he grinned heartily back in the general direction of Dr. Jake while following the woman through double doors. "Good luck!" He heard the doctor call, before chuckling to himself and using his disability to his advantage very quickly, pushing himself through the door with a jagged step, a faux trip, and a falling hand to a pair of breasts. "Oof, excuse me miss." The girl laughed, and at that he made the assumption based on the firmness of her chest, the slight of her hand in his, the aromatic perfume of a French import and the carefree giggle in her voice, that she was twenty three. _Twenty four tops…_he smiled as she led him through to a second waiting room, smaller and private, though it didn't make a single difference to him.

"Agent Sands, we'll just have you wait our here for Dr. Hanson. It should only take a couple of minutes." Leading him to a close chair, he stumbled a little but held firm to her arm for support, in all seriousness this time. His glasses were knocked off center from his nose slightly and she helped him adjust them, rather motherly, but in a way he actually didn't mind, especially from a girl with breasts like hers. Before she left the room again to return to her secretarial post he caught her at the whim of the doorway being opened, "Miss?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a name? I seem to have…_misplaced_ my eyes…so I won't have a face to recognize you by." Laughing at him she grinned and tucked her head back inside for a moment, "It's Allie, Mr. Sands."

"Allie, lovely. Thank you." With a wink and nod he rested his head back against the wall at her exit, shuffling his boots against the carpet restlessly, patting the thighs of his jeans, and kicking himself for not having grabbed an extra stick of gum from Shane. _No smoking…no gum…damn. _He gnawed at his lips, the insides of his mouth, searching out an avenue to distract the addiction, the stinging pull in his gut. He wasn't sure how the long the waiting part of this adventure would take, the waiting for a doctor who he knew couldn't help him anyway, forced to come by a boss who was reclining in the building next door, fanning himself with that fucking manila folder, that death sentence. _To keep me or not to keep me. What an honest question that would be if I wasn't who I am. Under a microscope for all to see…_he pondered casually while trying to sleep or re-process the events of the last three months. He'd been given treatment for his eyes, surgery of some kind to "pack" the holes, dress the "wounds" and in retrospect give him normally functioning eyelids that would decrease the risk of frightening young children, or hot, doctor's office receptionists. Fidgeting with his glasses a second time he felt the soft skin, still healing into place, still covered in a gluey mold, whatever it was. But before he could carry on his examination of what he couldn't see, let alone begin to imagine, he was interrupted by the sound of another door opening, this one thicker, more professional, although he hoped it was Allie again, another whiff of that French perfume would do him good now.

"Agent Sands?" _Not Allie…but another woman. Jesus, are they trying to kill me with treatment?_ He perked up slowly in the chair, pushing himself out and inching towards her voice with haste. "Agent Sands, hi. I'm Dr. Hanson, here let me help you…" her arm came to rest inside of his, warmly, although he left it alone for later observation in his mind. Her voice was honeyed, sweet but almost forced, as if she was trying to hide another side to herself, one only a blind man would be able to discern properly. "I'm glad you made it today."

"Well," He gruffed as they came into the room, brighter against his shades where light must have been pouring in, "The driving was a little difficult, a few crushed old ladies, mailbox or two, but I couldn't let you down." After she got him settled into a comfortable seat she took her place opposite him behind a desk, smiling.

"I heard you were a dark comedian."

"That's only a taste. My full act is on Wednesday's in the board room. Ladies' drink free." Again she couldn't help but laugh widely, "I might just have to remember that."

"Please do. And you can wear those red lace unmentionables your hiding under that professional skirt." With a dropped jaw she coughed back the shock of his sly attitude, but couldn't help herself from still laughing, and enjoying the handsome smirk he had. Corner of his mouth, a wrinkle halfway on his nose, a tobacco glinted gleam that assured her of the reputation. "I'm sorry Agent, but I only wear black lace to work."

"Touché', Doc."

"Thank you, and I am glad you decided to show today I was a little worried. Dr. Murphy had mentioned your concern over my treatment."

"If you call a lack of necessity, _concern_, then yeah. I had lots of it."

"You don't think you need to be here?"

"No."

"And why's that?"

"I'll tell you if you put that pen down." He had caught her with or without sight, jotting her random notes across a pad of paper, so cliché. Dropping the pen to the desk she leaned in with her fingers curled beneath her chin, more than curious now. "Pen's down."

"Good. Now look…I know Dane and Grisham and all the guys over in Headquarters' decided that I needed to spend a little 'psycho time' on your couch…" He stood up at his own accord, not knowing where he was walking or if he would be bound to trip on anything, but he followed the heat of the sunlight on his skin, making his way to the large window of the office. "…You know, they think I need to "discuss" my dilemma, and all the shit that went on down there."

"Yeah, discussion is part of the healing process."

"But that's just it Doc, there's nothing to heal. You must have gone to school for a long time to be able to sit here and talk to me about my issues…"

"A few years, yes."

"Well guess what…this is me. Sorry about your luck on this one, sweets." Ignoring the crude complement she continued listening with a keen ear. "I was just as fucked up before Mexico as I am now. Having my eyes taken…has only made me want to tear the skin off of these screw heads even more. I'm a generally fucked up person, your psychobabble and pills…it's a waste of the agency's funds. Trust me on this."

"So you're saying you're beyond my help?"

"You get it, good. So look, don't let me waste any more of your time…" He turned heading off in the direction he assumed the door to be in based on the minor floor plan he had gained walking in, "I'll just be going and –" As his hand reached down for a knob he was proud to find, Doctor Hanson caught up with him and held the door under his pull. _Fuck. She's strong. _He tugged once more before standing tall before her, the sweet musk of her perfume more tantalizing than that of the receptionist's, more matured, fine, sexy. "I've still got forty eight more minutes with you Agent Sands. Whether you like it or not…this session's already been paid for."

"Then keep the money and take a long lunch." Again he tried for the knob, which she warned tightly against with her grip at the wood of the door. "I already had lunch."

"So find a willing participant and christen this joint. Unless…you _already have_?" Shocked again by him she breathed heavily into his direction, taking his hand in hers and dragging him back to the chair he had gotten up from. He allowed it to happen, mostly because he was being entertained for the afternoon, and partly because he'd found himself in pleasant company despite the odds. "Just sit for a while. Talk. Listen. Whatever you want, humor me."

He sat for a long pause debating her request, knowing he had a million opportunities at his fingertips, but unsure of which one to put to use. Until it came to him…"What's your favorite sound?"

"My favorite sound?"

"Yeah. Is it something all nerdy and medical related, like the sound of a patient's heart…or maybe a little kinkier. The sound of sheets being rubbed together during a good fuck."

"You're really sick, do you know that?"

"I warned you."

"Yeah, you did."

"So, answer my question….favorite sound?" Licking her lips with an interest in his means she wove her arms together and relaxed into the leather of her chair, watching his melting grin. _What the hell does he want me to say? Sound…favorite sound…shit. Think, think, think. _"I don't know…the sound of the ocean, maybe?"

"Huh, typical." He huffed with pleasure, slanting down into his own chair with a wild mind, still raking for a cigarette. "What's that supposed to mean? I love the ocean."

"Which ocean?"

"Pacific."

"California?"

"Maybe, why?"

"Just curious. You don't sound like a California girl though."

"What do I sound like?"

"Hmm…" Letting his mind and ears wander in mid air he drowned himself in her voice thus far, knowing full well where she was probably from, "Quincy. The Cape. You sound like a girl from the Cape." Ignoring that he was spot on in his analysis she just laughed it off annoyingly. "Was I right?"

"No."

"Yeah, right."

"Why don't you let me ask you a few questions…?"

"Because I'll end up with a prescription."

"Is that what you really think?" Her heart went out to him, his condition, his lack of trust in her and what she knew she could help him through. "I don't need pills. I need a drink if anything."

'What kind?" By this he was immediately intrigued, swiping his falling hair back from his face, not realizing that her stare was fixed intently upon him, the charm, the roughish exterior, all of the things she couldn't help but drop inside of. _She wants to know what kind of drink, I like? Interesting…Doctor Hanson huh? _ "Depends on where I'm at and who I'm with."

"How about right now, here with me?" Again suspense and utter stimulation boiled over in him with the sound of her voice, the curiosity behind it, and her breath stinging the distance between them.

"That's easy, Doc. Gin and tonic." She smiled at this, impressed herself at the answer.

"Not a bad choice."

"Not a bad question." Another smile, another laugh. "But I've got one for you now."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah. I've been sitting here now for another ten minutes and I'm wondering to myself, if Doctor Hanson has a first name?" He waited patiently across from her, his boots tapping against the shallow side of her desk, fingers scratching at his lower stomach in a sense of withdrawal now from lack of tobacco. Something about her lack of immediate response, as well as her silenced breathing, told him she was timid about the question, perhaps not willing to participate that far. Although she knew everything about him, it only seemed fair. She contemplated answering him, wanted to in fact, but gave it a light air to the production of a response, wanting to hold him for the need to know. Yet, just as she was about to lay it on him, he stopped her from thinking, "Never mind. I tell you what, if I decide to come back next time, you can tell me then."

"But—" She tried to call him back to his seat once he was up -- "Sands!" -- tried to follow him to the door, but he wouldn't have it this time, he was gone. Through the waiting room, through the receptionist's area with a wicked smirk plastered in the direction he felt Allie in, insisting he would see her again soon, and then he was gone through the front door of the building. Outside into the cold he flew to meet Shane, cigarette pack thrust into his palm while her own dragged between her lips.

"Have fun?"

"A blast. Got a light?"

"For you, always." She smiled while opening the car door for him and running around to her side, curious to death about what he had thought of the doctor, if only because she held knowledge over him. When she was settled behind the wheel of the black SUV, she turned on the radio, the heat, and took off with a laugh. "So…how is she?"

"Who? Dr. Hanson?"

"Yeah…although if I recall there was a time when you would have called her other things." A drag and a laugh as he scrunched his nose with a puff, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your doctor…Lily?"

"Lily?" He thought about it for a second, the voice, the scent, the touch of her hand, and the name…._Lily Hanson. Oh Christ, no way…_he couldn't think straight all of a sudden, a dozen images, a million sounds and scents, a feeling he couldn't express properly waved over him. He tried to smoke, but it did nothing. He tried to focus on the music, but this was worse. Janie watched him as his head lolled, glasses tipping down from his nose, almost tiredly, "Jeff, you didn't know?"

"Hey Shane…if I pass out….don't let this smoke burn a hole in my ass…." And at that, smugly, drowsily his head fell against the window of the car door, as she caught the cigarette from between his fingers with a laugh. "That's more like it," she thought, trying to remember back to a time when she had last seen Sands and Lily together, a time she felt he finally needed back.

* * *

**Chatham, Massachusetts **

_December 16__th__, 1993_

_In his shock induced nightmares he found her coming back to him quickly, every last moment he'd ever spent beneath her glow, the things he could recall about her beauty, her wit, her humor he so had tried to match. It was mid December of 92', Christmas break, snow piles scattered across the front drive where he had parked his Trans Am, and she had come running out after almost three months of waiting. "Jeff!" She yelled with a wide grin, leaping into his arms and pulling him into the wet lawn, careless. Her lips were a memory nearly forgotten when he touched them that day, something he needed more than life itself, the heat of her mouth saving him from the raw Cape breezes. _

"_God I missed you…" Sheldon spoke heartily with kisses along her neck and throat, his hands stretching down her thighs. "Careful buddy, my mom's watching from the kitchen." Looking up from her mouth he peered into the sunlight and waved to where he could see the shadow of a women in the window, a gleaming smile spread across her face. He'd had his approval from Mrs. Hanson long ago, and there was no need to worry, so he returned to her lips, gladly, excitedly. Lily felt her mind wander over his every move, the way his hand lingered at the center of her jeans, the pressure of his own against her leg, and his soft hair falling against her forehead where her snow cap wove together. She never wanted to get up, she never wanted him to leave again. _

"_Stay forever this time…please…"_


	5. Meet Resistance

**Meet Resistance**

Dr. Hanson's office – Appointment #2

Washington, DC

_January 14__th__, 2004_ - noon

* * *

Ice. Wind. One drag left before he would have to move towards the nearby steps with Shane's assistance. She'd offered to bring him today on account of getting to hopefully see Lily again, the past mere moments away for both of them. Feeling a tug at the upper arm of his jacket, his boots shuffled forward beside his sister, the cigarette falling into a bank of snow with a sizzle he could see in his mind based on the sound. "Do I even have to mention what today is?"

"I'd rather you pretend to be ignorant for once and rid the thought of your mind…"

Shane laughed as they walked inside to the warmth of the waiting room. "Oh come on…it's perfect. Just pull all that weird, natural charm crap on her."

"Shut up…" He begged, falling into a chair nearby the doorway, trying his damndest to listen for Allie's footsteps, her voice, a touch of her hand to lead him away perhaps. But there was nothing, only Shane's insistence on the situation at hand. "Don't you remember how close you guys used to be, god, you all made me sick."

"You do realize that was ten fucking years ago."

"It was not…it was eight years ago."

"Huge difference there, Shy."

"Just talk to her, I bet she still wants to--" His sisters aggravating advice was interrupted by the entrance of someone with a clipboard, and then the sound of his name, "Agent Sands?"

"That's him!" _Yeah…that's me for God's sake. _"Great, Dr. Hanson is ready to see you." _Wonderful…_I thought, _she can watch me squirm while I listen to her breathing. _Shane was staying in the waiting room with her book and iPod he guessed, and so Sands allowed the office aid to walk him through to the back. He still had very little interest in using a cane, there was in fact no chance in hell he'd let them give me one. In his mind, he'd rather run into a bus then use a stick to find his house. _Ah, getting hit by a bus. Sounds amazing right now. _

The walk was longer than he remembered it, probably set in by nerves, but it was only a matter of time before he heard a second door open in front of his boots, then felt the cool wood of the doorway, and recognized the reverence of her voice, this was her midday voice, it was still the same only matured. "Agent Sands, good to see you again."

"_Baby…you're here!" _The memories were flooding back in, she used to sound sweeter in midday, not so professional, _"…sweetie…you're here finally!" _ Not _Agent Sands_, and certainly no _'good to see you's'. _ Her hand soon found his, icy skin meeting the warmth of her palm, itching to pull away but not wanting to startle anything yet, he only focused on taking a seat, getting comfortable, fighting off the resistance to move, to think. When he finally heard her leather chair soften with the mold of her body, he coughed and smiled in her direction, scrunching his nose to bring his glasses up further. "So…" she began normally, as if her name and his had never once met in the past before, "How are you feeling today?"

"Does horny count?"

Lily tried to collect her mind, biting her bottom lip and moving to find a pen. She needed something to steady her anxious energy, her shaking knee in his presence. "I think I'd have to refer you to someone else for that region. I meant…your overall mood, how are you?"

"Confused."

"That works…what are you confused about?" Here it was, the opportunity presented, the truest of moments to speak his mind, but did he? _Hell no, not quite yet. _Instead he tugged at his jacket and white shirt underneath, twisted his boots together comfortably, and scratched his chin. "I'm confused about…" crack of knuckles, wobble of knee and a conclusion, "well, I'm confused about why the Patriots lost last night."

"You watched the game?"

"I'm blind doc."

"So you listened,"

"Uh yeah. Figure I might as well use the heightened sense for something constructive." He replied sarcastically, never realizing the smile crossing her lips at the same moment. "See…I can't figure out why Brady thought it would be fun to run for a touchdown with sixteen fucking seconds on the clock…when the team was down by three?"

She quickly got caught up in Sands again, her mind returning to a state of being sixteen, and just on the coattails of his energy, his liveliness, his basis in her life at that point. "Yeah, tell me about it. I couldn't believe he let that one get away…Bruschi could have taken it!"

"Jesus I know…it baffled the hell out of me." Coming down from his alternative high, and the pure justification he had hoped for, he settled into the chair again with a light chuckle, a grin and the gift of hearing her sigh in tormented laughter. It was all the proof he needed to know it was her, still. He only wondered why it was she hadn't made a single move to try to explain herself, bring the two of them into a reunion, instead of this game of doctor and patient, cat and blind mouse. It was almost as if she didn't want to go back, as if she'd taken his case at the request of her supervisor, not because of the name on the paper. Because he didn't know what the truth was, he had to continue the act of ignorance. "I would have never taken you for a football fan, doc Hollywood."

"Because I'm a woman?"

"No. Because you're a psychologist." At this he heard the sound of her slacking laugh, while Lily noted his curious humor, wondering when the wall would be torn down and they could finally see each other, really see and understand one another again. She wanted to make the first move, but didn't know how. The term 'awkward' was too mute a description for this meeting of the minds.

"Well then, I guess that means I should be doing my job."

"Or you could put the pen down and we could talk about the Red Sox too…" he offered up with a contagious grin, a lean towards her voice, her desk. "I think we should just stick with the appropriate questions, Agent Sands." Formalities, he hated them, and now it only sounded ridiculous.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Alright, I'll make a deal with you…" she didn't like where this was headed, but almost felt a strange memory surfacing, a dozen in fact, one right after the other as he moved in further towards her desk, his cheekbones motioning in a smile wide enough to knock his aviators off balance. "…you can ask me anything you want, as long as you quit this 'Agent Sands' shit…call me what you used to…_Tiger_ _Lily_." With a twitch of his nose and a pulse of her heart beating wildly against her collarbone, she sat looking at him, unsure of what exactly to say next. He remembered, _Tiger Lily_, his own finding and pronouncing upon their very first date. "You do remember…what you used to call me. Don't you?"

She paused, knowing full well what it was he wished to hear, the name she'd bitten her tongue on for a week, that tag he'd been given all those years ago. _I can't do it…don't do it Lillian, he's screwing with your head. Just be professional, help him, and send him along. No need to raise the past today…especially the wrong day for that. _

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes…" she responded hesitantly, tapping her pen still on the paper.

"That's a shame Lily," He began, standing up from his chair much the same as he had on his first appointment, brushing past her desk. By the time he made it towards the general direction of door by footsteps alone, he turned back around to face her with a short grin, "But in any case…I guess it's only fair for me to wish you a happy birthday, huh?"

Lily dropped the pen she was holding in shock, her eyes stricken as they looked back up towards him, her lips quivering almost. She didn't say anything, but the silence was broken soon enough by him again, "Twenty nine right?"

"Y-you…remembered?" She offered as she stood up from her chair, brushing down her shirt nervously and walking around from behind the desk to reach the open space in the office between the sofa and door. Sands didn't know what color her hair was now, or if her skin was pale from the ghostly winter churning outside, or even if she was the same height, but he could smell her body as it moved, and by scent, he imagined her to still be his Lily. The one who used to blast REO Speed Wagon in his car, just because he hated them. The girl who would rather have a picnic in the snow than wait another six months for summer. The one who told him she loved him, even before he had learned to love himself. Stuck in a daze as she came closer, her heels pattering on the thick rug of her office, he thought about all of the things he could do to remind her of that girl, to tell her he still knew, and that no matter the time that had passed or the tragedy that had come between them, he was still just Jeff. Even though he feared, the Agency had convinced her otherwise.

"Well kid…there's a lot of stuff I don't remember. Like how to do long division, but, I remember January 14th… more than I should actually." Lily was smiling, the closest thing she could manage at least without crying, and the sound of him calling her_ kid_ all these years later, something that used to drive her crazy, now seemed so right. When she noticed him wobbling against his right leg to stand upright, she remembered in his file something about a gunshot wound to his upper thigh, still not fully healed apparently. Reaching her hand out to balance him with a grip on his arm, he grunted with the pain and breathed heavily. "Why don't you use a cane?"

The question was simple, but it hit him hard, that returned idea of him hobbling about with a stick like an old man. Because it was her though, he noticed how he let it instantly slide and only patiently responded, "Pills work better and make me look younger."

"You don't look so young to me." Even without seeing the smirk crawling across her face, he heard the sarcasm in her voice and winced with laughter as she helped him back towards the couch. "Just sit down, we're not done yet."

"Still wanna play doctor, huh? I guess I can't complain about that…" trying to ignore his antics, she reached into the front drawer of her desk to grab a sample dose of Tramadol and her bottle of water. Sitting down comfortably next to him, she opened the package and dropped two small greens pills into his hand, a color he didn't care about, and waited for him to drop them into his mouth before handing him the water. "That should help for now." Swallowing the meds roughly, he coughed once and then smiled at her in thanks. Nothing was said for a matter of seconds as they collected their thoughts, a few memories whirling around in the air between them, but mostly breathing and more grinning, until Sands could think of no other way to break it again.

"Have plans for your birthday?"

"Why?" The conversation began quickly, both of them matching each other for wit, precision in response. This was how Lily and Sands had always been.

"Seems too important a day not to celebrate."

"Maybe so, I'm going out to dinner."

"What's his name?" He darted back as he relaxed into the couch, Lily's mouth only twisting as her eyes rolled. "It's not a _he_."

"Ohh…" Sitting up with perked interest and a kinky grin he moved closer, "Now I know why we didn't last."

"God, you're still just as sick. I meant my mom, she's flying in today."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really." He could sense her humor, her liveliness, and her joy in having expressed the visit of her mother, the woman Sands had known Lily to always have been close to. He loved this about her for whatever reason, perhaps because his mother had died when he was so young, or because he and his father never had such a relationship. Lillian and her mother Debbie had always warmed his heart when he was younger, and even now thinking about it. A warming sensation that very little could ever bring to him, and very little ever would for that matter.

The two of them sat relatively close, sharing minor details on Sands condition, only shortly discussing what had happened in Mexico, nothing about his wrong doings, and especially nothing about Ajedrez. Lily didn't need to know about her. She never needed to know as he saw it. So instead they talked about the RedSox as he had first offered, and discussed what the weather would be like on the Cape this time of year, weather they knew all too well. But nothing reached a more personal level than what they were comfortable with, and when the hour was finally up, Janie came back to the office to find Sands and the reunion met another accord between the two young women. They embraced immediately, having been just as close as any when they were in school, when their brothers were as tightly bound as they were.

"My god, you look amazing!" Shane pronounced as Lily returned with the same compliments, both of them curious over hair colors, outfits, shades of lipstick, all of this while Sands leaned against the doorway gnawing on his gums and trying to smile. Just hearing her voice so proliferated, so full of life was enough for him, and he didn't care if she was talking about shoes or prescriptions, it was what he needed. Eventually though they had caught up enough to return the conversation full circle to include him, and he couldn't help but to remain his loveable, sarcastic self for at least one more round.

"So how's my big brother doing…?" Shane asked as she squeezed his cheek and Sands slapped her hand away by touch and the sound of its movement through air. Lily laughed and tried to pry her eyes off of him, never noticing how hooked they had become. "He did well today, we talked more."

"Used to be a time I couldn't get the two of you to shut the hell up." This broken an awkward and obvious silence across the three of them, until Shane continued with her usual antics. "Right…well, guess you probably want to go home…big day and all."

"Oh, um yeah." She tried, brushing her eyes away from Sands to catch her balance on heels again, "I've gotta pick my mom up from the airport soon."

"Right, well it was great to see you Lil…" Shane leaned in and shared another hug, insisting that the two of them have lunch or go out one night, to which Lily agreed smiling while Janie moved back out of the office to give the other two a moment of space. Sands pushed himself from the doorway panel, a smug grin on his face as he stood a good foot and a half above where he could hear her breathing. Not much had changed; she was still just under his chin, a place he liked her at, a placed that comforted him with memories. Neither one of them knew how to end the meeting, and only waited for the other, without hope. It was Sands though, as it usually had been between them, who tore down the barrier, and gave his last input. "Next Tuesday, right?"

"Next Tuesday."

"Okay. Don't let Deb fuck you up too much tonight. No more than two margaritas…" she laughed while pushing him out of the doorway towards Shane again. "Tuesday!" he yelled through the waiting room, back in the direction he knew she was standing. "Tuesday!" When he was eventually through the large door again and out of sight, Lily turned around to grab her purse from her office, leaning against the door as she shut it. Her mind was spinning over what had become of everything, the hour they had spent as Lily and Sands, not Dr. Hanson and Agent Sheldon. It had been refreshing to find herself back at the mercy of his entertainment, of his smile, of his presence, and as she leaned on the door, breathing anxiously, she only wished she could see his eyes. Knowing they were gone and that this would never be again, she only breathed once more and with a smile granted his wish, "Tuesday…_Sparky_."


	6. Sweet Adrift

Sweet adrift

**Chatham Bay, Massachusetts – April 1993**

**Stage Harbor Lighthouse**

_The surf was crystallized against the sand; the sun was fading out further and further from shore and a flickering glow began to light the outer Chatham banks. It was a Wednesday and Lily had skipped school without a care in the world. Jeff had driven down from Boston the night before after finishing his last exams. And as they sat wound together in an ancient blanket, the snowy sand covering their feet, his legs forming the barrier to shield her body from anything and everything, neither of them could believe that it had only been eight short months before that Tommy had introduced them over dinner. _

"_**Jeff, man…this is my sister, Lily." He'd laughed with a palm directed to each of their shoulders as they shook hands in the middle of the kitchen. "Lily, Tom talks about you all the time." **_

"_**He better…I'm the coolest person he knows." **_

"_**I don't doubt that one bit." His smile had been so magnetic, like it was drawing her directly into his warmth. Tom had told her all about Jeff, but forgotten to mention the one thing that mattered to any seventeen year old girl; that he would be the hottest guy she'd ever met.**_

_Lily had never really understood what had made Sheldon want to be with her, when he could clearly have any one of the college girls chasing after him. What did he want with the baby sister of his best friend, a high school Junior nonetheless? She was so ordinary, so plain compared to the older girls Tommy had brought home, their chests bronzed and flirty, short skirts, long, shiny blonde hair. Lily was the complete opposite, with her thin, boyish figure, tangled brown curls, and makeup free cheeks and lips. She was just a kid. _

_Jeff tucked his nose between her shoulder and chin, moving his lips to the warm skin at her neck, kissing lightly, leaving a wet trail when he pulled back at her giggling. She was nothing like the Boston women he'd come to be acquainted with, no jeweled clothes or heavy eyelashes, no exposed breasts or three inch heels. Lily was as basic as a girl from the Cape could come, she was the epitome of the girl next door, and it was that he loved most about her, whether she knew it or not. The way her dark curls sat tucked beneath his beaten old Red Sox cap, the seashell shade of her toes as they buried themselves into the outer edge of their earlier built sandcastle, and how her body fit so perfectly inside his arms, not so curved, not so soft, just right. _

"_Hey Lil…"_

"_Yeah?" _

"_What'd you say…when you're out of school next month, we take a trip up to New York?" His question made her smile into the wool blanket where it met the crook of his elbow. She'd wanted to visit New York for years, had mentioned to him numerous times how much she wished she could go, and now here he was offering it. Lily didn't know what to say, part of her thought it was a joke and she spun around in his legs to face him. His eyes were honest enough, but Jeff always had such a sly way about him; he was a good liar when he wanted to be. _

"_You're lying." She stated without wavering her gaze. _

"_No…" He laughed, "I'm serious, let's go."_

"_Even if you were telling the truth…you know my mom would never let me take off alone, with you…" _

"_Your mom loves me."_

"_That doesn't mean she wants you loving me…alone." With a chuckle he agreed to disagree with her, and wiped the palm of his hand down her face to brush away the sand that had tickled her nose and lips. And with a sinister grin and a tightening of his thighs around her he replied obviously, "That's what Tommy's for, kid." _

* * *

It was the force of a thousand sounds, a dozen images of past, present, future that startled Sands awake. In the back of his mind he could hear her, "_You're lying…I don't believe you…"_

When he came awake finally, there was a spark glittering against his eyelids, the soft tissue still healing from the surgery, like a bolt of lightning in a black sky. And then it was over and he was sitting up on his elbows somewhere, half stretched out, on a couch maybe. There were a few pillows behind him, a blanket of some kind covering his legs, toes hanging out on the wood floor. He didn't remember making it to the couch, or to his apartment for that matter, but here he was. At least he hoped it was his place.

"Finally, I thought you died." It was Shane, coming around the back of the couch, stepping in closer with the sound of a fork clanking against porcelain. "You hungry?" He still wasn't even sure if it was his apartment or hers, what day it was, or night, and especially why it was his head hurt so bad. The last thing he did remember was sand, water, the lighthouse casting out over the distant beach, wherever that beach was. Lily was there, but younger, happier. And he could see her, which meant he was younger too, from years gone away now. Instead all that was left was an odd shifting of Shane's body near his as he sat up further, praying for aspirin and catching the distinct whiff of Chinese takeout.

"What time is it?" He asked groggily, dragging his fingers through the mess of hair in his face, and only quickly rubbing his weak sex through his boxers as Shane rolled her eyes. "It's time for you to stop scratching your balls on my couch."

"I thought that's where I was…smelled like your place."

"Clean, you mean?"

When he didn't answer her sarcasm, she dropped a plate of food in his hands and assured him he'd already slept well into the night, 11:35. She also explained that because he had passed out in her car that she just as well figured to bring him to her apartment for the night since they had to go into headquarters' together the next morning anyway. Shane for a staff meeting, and Sands…for his last walk. This pained Shane as much as it did him, her own brother, and the best goddamn field agent to hit the CIA in forty years, pushed aside. They'd done all they could for him, and it wasn't enough, he still had to lose his job, everything he knew, everything he was good at. Since they were kids, Jeff had taken care of her, kept her out of trouble, and even saved her from the imminent danger of home all those years ago. And now, Shane could hardly accept the thought that the tables had turned on them, and she would be the one taking care of him, at least, if he would let her at all.

"How's the food?"

"G-good…" He stuttered with a full mouth, dropping rice on his shirt. Shane laughed and turned the TV on from across the room, noticing him pushing the eggroll around his plate, something she'd placed there on purpose. He hated them, and in a test to see how he would react blindly to it, he'd thus succeeded. "What the fuck did you give me an eggroll for?" He finally proclaimed, pushing it off the plate and to the coffee table where he felt a Styrofoam box. Sands was still himself, no matter the darkness of his world, no matter his shield from life around him. This at least, brought her some comfort, and as she buried herself into the thick leather couch beside him again, nibbling off of his plate without him knowing, she almost felt like a kid again. The two of them up late in some random hotel room, in some random city, alone, bored, watching David Letterman and snacking on whatever room service could offer them.

Sands listened to Dave's voice and laughed along, trying to picture Angelina Jolie's face, her breasts, and her lips, despite the lack of vision. It would be like this forever, just the same, nothing but his own intelligence, his own memory to go on. One day Angelina Jolie would be older. One day Janie would be older. One day Lily would be, and he would still only see her as the twenty-one year old girl with a teardrop on each cheek, a red rose in her hand, and black heels stepping into a pile of snow at the highest hill of the Chatham cemetery. Even now, though her voice had grown cheerier over the last eight years, he couldn't discern it, he couldn't picture her. Would she still look just as adorable in his old hat? Would she still fit in his arms the same? Did she really not remember his nickname…?

* * *

"Honey, what's wrong? Is the food ok?" Lily sat across from her mom in an upscale Asian restaurant in the city, probing and poking at everything, her eggroll in particular. She wasn't as hungry as she thought she had been, and although the company of her mom was comforting after almost two months of being away from home, there was so much on her mind she wanted to talk about, but she wasn't even sure how to start. Her mom had adored Jeff for so many years, something about his dark humor and wild ways intrigued her mother, made her laugh when both Lily and Tom had thought it wasn't possible.

"It's fine mom, I just…I don't know, I have this new patient. It's bugging me."

"Really? That's not like you to get so attached…is it serious?" As another mouthful of food came to her mom's lips, Lillian looked up from her plate with a gawking stare, a pressured thought, the image of a smile.

"Yeah. Yeah mom, it's really serious."

"Well, I know you doctors have all those confidentiality papers, but you can talk about it if you need to, sweetheart."

"Yeah." She replied simply, dropping her chopsticks and reaching out to take hold of her third glass of dinner wine for the evening. While her lips sat still on the edge of the glass, the tangy liquid sliding down her throat, she thought about the best approach to the topic, how to bring it up after so many years, how to say his name again to her mom. She couldn't even begin to imagine what the reaction would be, and feared this above all else. But in the end, as her glass came back to settle on the table, and her eyes drew glazed with a haze of conscious memory, she decided to jump in head first. "Do you remember Jeff Sands, mom?"

"Jeffery, of course I do. You and Tommy were so close to him, how could you think I'd forget?"

"Well…" She started, tapping her chopsticks nervously on the side of her plate, "I'm sort of…his new doctor."

"What? You're kidding…since when?"

"Since…last Tuesday." She returned mockingly.

"My god, Lily. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Well, how is he? I mean…why does he need to see you? Jeffery was always such a healthy boy. Charming…"

"He's still healthy, he's just…" When Lily stopped abruptly at the response her mother began to fidget with nerves, knowing it was something almost too difficult for her daughter to admit to. Whatever it was. "He's just what?"

"Jeff h-had, an accident. In Mexico."

"Mexico, why there?"

"He was on a case. He works for the Agency."

"He does? I thought he was still working in Boston, with the D.A?"

"No. He's been a field agent for the CIA about seven years now."

"You knew that and didn't see him?"

"I couldn't mom, I just…" The need for conversation was still strong, but the wary tension growing between their minds was nearly too much to continue bearing. "I couldn't see him again, not after…Tommy." Debbie didn't like where any of this was going, it was all too familiar, all too already lived.

"What happened to him Lillian?"

One more pause, and it finally came.

"He's…blind."

* * *

**Nantucket sound, Cape Cod**

**_June 2nd, 1993_**

"_Lily hurry up…Shane, get the radio!" _

_The sound of the calls down the dock filled her senses, between sails and boats in the summer sky of the early morning, Shane and her boyfriend Joe running around with towels, coolers, all sorts of things, while Tommy and his 'friend' Katy goofed around with the rigging and a bottle of wine. And then there was Jeff, who was ordering everyone around. He was good at that, even then. Because his dad didn't know they were taking the sailing yacht out of the Cape, they had to get to the docks early before the sailing General came to open up. But scatter brained and bubble toed, he managed to get back to the Hanson family station wagon to find Lily trying to pull the fishing poles out without damaging them. He smiled as he watched her from behind, cursing under her breath, the loose cotton of her nautical shorts dancing in the misty breeze, and her hair blowing against her sweater. Coming up to her, he wrapped one arm around her waist and let the other straddle her own arm until he could take hold of her hand and the poles. _

"_Let me help you, baby."_

_Lily smiled without having realized he was ever behind her, feeling his breath warm her shaking bones, and the tightness of his jeans against her backside, enticing, tempting her to do something for the very first time. She already knew she wanted Jeff to be the one, she'd known for months, and a small part of her had begun to wonder if this trip to New York would be the perfect chance for it to happen. The feeling of his strong arms around her, the way he always protected her even when he wasn't trying, the way he carried her away to places she had never been with any other boy, and he was a man. Twenty-two to match her now eighteen years, but it didn't make a single difference to either of them. He was home for the summer, and she intended on proving to him just how much he had come to mean to her over the last year, just how grown up Tommy's little sister could be for him. _

"_You're so cold…" he whispered into her ear as the fishing lines fell against the back of the car, and he turned her around to face him. "How are we gonna change that?" Without telling him, Lily knew it had already been changed, with a single stroke of his lips against the back of her ear, his tongue flicking at the tender skin, striking down the cold with heat upon heat from inside of him. Subconsciously, she felt her fingers tuck into the front rim of his jeans, pulling his body further towards her, almost asking for it. But with a sweet kiss on the lips he leaned away with a snug grin, and took hold of the fishing poles, "Careful Tiger Lily…or you'll ruin your surprise." _

"_What surprise?" _

"_You'll see." He smiled and turned away, shouting back, "Hurry up, grab your shit!" _

_After getting her backpack out of the backseat and locking her mom's car for the week, she zipped her jacket tighter, and twirled her pink scarf around her neck twice more while running down the docks to the breathtaking sailboat, the one Jeff swore they would have back before Congressman Sands even knew it was missing. Shane though, was the only one besides Sheldon that didn't truthfully care if they did or not, and as Joe helped her aboard, Tommy lifted Lily over as well and hopped on himself. It would take five minutes to sail out of port, or so Jeff swore on that too. _

"_Alright let's get this fucker out of here." Katy and Tommy howled in agreement loudly for the effect it caused their already rattled, beer induced heads from the night before. Jeff shooed Shane off to work on the anchor, while he moved to the wheel, and brushing past where Lily sat in the middle of the yacht, he pulled his hat from his head and tugged it down onto hers with a loving grin, "Hold onto this for me, kiddo." It smelled, but she didn't care. It was his favorite, his lucky hat. And as she watched him maneuver the vessel through the rocky green port waters and out onto the foggy Cod Bay, she noticed herself having thoughts for the very first time about spending the rest of her life with him. She couldn't figure out why, or how, if it was the stench of his well used Sox cap, the frigid air, the way his muscles tensed under the holey patches of his beaten up white tee, or if it was just her heart speaking. But somehow, Lily had opened her eyes for the very first time, and when she opened them, all she could see was Jeff. _

* * *

"He can't see? How could that have happened Lillian…?"

She wasn't paying attention to her mother's questions, she could only think about the way the wind felt that day, his lips burning a hole at the nape of her neck, that stupid old hat of his. Twisting her napkin for dear life, Debbie eventually reached out to grab and relax Lily's hand, almost in tears at the sight. "Sweetie, look at me." Lily did as she was asked, but was still miles away on the Cape somewhere. "What happened to Jeff?"

"T-they tortured him."

"Who?"

"Uhh…" Coughing back her thoughts, she tried to focus on the required answer, seeing it in her mind, his file, the small details he had given her earlier in the afternoon. "The Mexican Cartel. They found out he was CIA…and they, took his eyes."

"Took them?"

"Drilled."

Mrs. Hanson, in all of her experiences with law enforcement tragedy had never expected to hear anything like this, and eventually had to choke back her own need to cry, to vomit, to lose it. Jeffery had practically become part of their family the year after Tom and Lily had lost their father, something she knew they each needed, a good, solid friend. Things had of course risen above such between Sheldon and Lillian, she knew this well, and had adored every minute of their a courtship. Jeff was the boy, the man she had always wanted for her little girl. And now, looking across the table of the restaurant at her daughter, turning twenty-nine, a glass of wine in her hand to ease the same pain Debbie had felt for Peter all those years ago, it broke her heart to no end. Sure, it had been almost six years since either of them had heard from or seen Jeffery or his own sister, but it was with good reason apparently.

Before she could bring herself to ask any other questions about it, Lily had asked if they could get some dessert to go, to which her mom nodded silently with a knowing smile, paid the tab against her daughter's will, and took her home. Lily needed her mom tonight, more than she thought she ever would, she needed to know that Sheldon had ended up in her office, under her discretion for help for a reason, some higher power perhaps. He had come back to her for a reason, whether either of them understood why or not.


	7. Wanted Dead or Dead

Wanted dead or dead

**Headquarters Board Room**

**_January 15__th__, 2004_ – 9:31 am**

Shane hadn't wanted to go there this morning, alone for the first time since Mexico, without her brother, her partner. It was a meeting to discuss an ulterior case that had come in the day before, something only a handful of them knew about, and only another handful would after today. She had left Sheldon somewhere in the lounge with a few of the other guys, joking about things she didn't understand, ranking tits and playoff scores. He didn't seem to be too worried about what he was here for, and that in less than four hours, he'd be no more an agent than he would be a man with good eyesight.

Stepping inside the glass door to the sound proof board room, Shane caught Jack's smile from the head of the table, requested a coffee, and took a seat beside Carter and Andy, the OPS. There was a folder waiting for her to open, documents, photos, an ID card or two, and tickets. She already knew what was about to happen, and that by the end of the day her bags would be packed and she'd be eating airline peanuts on her way to god knows where…_Florida. Crap. _It wasn't that Shane didn't like the idea of some sun after all the ice she'd had to deal with the last few months, it was more or less the issue of what had previously come of another Florida case. A few broken leg bones if she remembered correctly.

"Shane…how's Sands?" Carter leaned over from the right side of the table, handing her a coffee and appearing almost concerned. Sands, Shane and Carter had known each for quite a long time, worked together enough to grow attached to concern and the sound of each others voices.

"He's ok I think. Still hasn't registered to him."

"What's he gonna do now?"

"I don't know." She responded quietly, taking a sip of the hot coffee and then looking up as Jack's cough brought the group to attention.

"Alright my little fiends, let's make this a quick one. It's Florida, a weapons ring. A few counts of drug sales, untaxed strip club on the beach and a giant investment in a little home-grown institution known as…the Tampa Bay Bucs. Sound familiar to anyone?"

"They kicked Oakland's ass last week." Andy chimed in, with a few of the other surrounding male agents chuckling. Shane as usual, was the only woman in the room, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

"Well…the reason their kicking ass, probably has something to do with the trainers they can afford, thanks to the in cash flow. This fucker has apparently become their unofficial god on the sidelines, providing whatever they need…getting his cut at the end of every win. Good news is though…we're not strangers to him."

"We're not?" Shane asked biting down on her pen. "Who the hell is he?"

"Shane, that's the reason I'm putting you on this one."

"It is? Why?"

Jack relaxed in his chair, and pushed another folder across the length of the table to fall under her fingertips, Carter, Andy, and the others incorporated into the meeting stared from one to the other. "Does the name _Jimmy Tuzla_ still mean anything to you?"

Shane stopped. Her mind wired itself into basic instinct mode. And from there her head cleared out into a white canvas of thought, of pain, of a dozen screams, of her brother's face.

"_Where's Tommy…" He stuttered through the rain, his gun sliding between his fingers but caught with a full grip as he pushed through Shane's hands and across the metal plated side of the roof, "Where the fuck is he…where's Tommy?!"_

"_Jeff, don't…Stop!" He didn't, he only kept walking, kept barreling through with the blood from a fresh bullet wound trickling down from his shoulder, another from his chest. Sands knew he couldn't stop now, he had to find Tuzla, and he had to find his partner, his best friend. _

_"Tom! Tommy, come on man!" He continued shouting as Shane jogged yards behind near the stairwell of the roof, tears mixing with raindrops on her cheeks.  
_

_They had only managed to get up two flights before they had heard the uncountable gunshots from above, knowing that they should have never sent Tom in alone. He was trained, he'd been in the force almost three years now, but this had been different for some reason, there had been tension before. He was on the roof, his boots slipping against the water marks and puddles, turning the corner of a few elevated walls, until he came to the last corner, bolted across the open tar, and turned. "Tommy!" _

_He only yelled once more, his gun drawn out in front of him, legs straddled to hold the weight of any bullets that would come to him, but there was nothing. Only red water fading into black concrete, Tommy's hand laying flat against the ground with a gun thrown out of it carelessly, and no movement. Nothing. _

"_No! Fuck…fuck! Shane…Shane!"_

"Shane?!" When startled out of her conscious thoughts, she saw Jack again, his eyes waiting for a response she clearly knew.

"Sorry…I just…yes. Yes, I remember him." Her reply was tired, haggard, demonic almost, as if she could draw her gun on a photo of the man at any second and feel nothing but satisfaction.

"I thought you might. He's your guy."

"You found him?"

"Yeah, he's been hiding out in Florida under the name…_Freddy Braxton_, a real stiff business guy, man about town, walks with an iron fist down there."

"Down where, exactly?"

"Uhh…well, he's got a beach house near the causeway in Tampa, and a condo on Clearwater Beach about an hour away where he owns a beach resort, night club, a few restaurants. You fly down tonight, and I'm sending Carter and Fruit Loop over here with you." Processing the information she was gaining, she glanced down to the folder again, seeing a few more names, a few locations, entrepreneurships, dates, numbers, cash amounts, all whizzing around inside of her mind. She heard the sound of a bullet in the back of her head, and heard the sound of Tommy yelling for help, then the sound of Jeff the day, only two months before, he'd done the same. Both times, she had done nothing for them, she'd let them down.

Looking up once more she smiled, to Carter who nodded with care, then to _'Fruit Loop'_ which on a good day was just Andy Miles, and then back to Jack, the man she knew was sending her into this thing with the intention of getting revenge for herself, for Sands, for the friend they'd both lost too soon. Shane knew she needed this, they all did. She'd go to Florida, soak up the sun and lay a few rounds between the heart valves of a man who had left the Hanson's high and dry a second time. Now all she wanted to do was find her brother.

"Do a good job princess, and the office in Boston is yours." Her promotion, something she'd wanted for a year or more, something that would land her in an equal position to Jeff. Not that it really mattered now; she wasn't doing this for a leather chair and desk overlooking Fenway Park. She had other intentions, all of which would have to be put to use with a few broken rules in their midst.

"We'll get him Jack, I swear it."

* * *

**North New York Harbor – sunrise**

**_June 4__th__, 1993_**

_Windows were fogged on a hot, New York morning. One sheet held the naked skin of their bodies together, woven into the second level bed facing out across the field of water between Manhattan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Lily's arm was draped tiredly around Jeff's waist where the sheet finally began, his skin moist of simply laying with hers, fingertips tapping at her back. His breathing was paced, but she thought he was asleep by the peacefulness of his body under hers, no movement, no sound. They had almost made love, consummated all that they were, and it had very nearly touched everything she'd imagined it would and more. From that moment until the end of eternity she was supposed be his, at least in one sense of the word. Had she actually given him her innocence and done all she could to prove her womanhood to him, given him the evidence that she was ready to grow up and old with him, then she might have felt differently, the waves and sunrise might have looked prettier to her. But instead they mocked all they had become. In three short months she would start at Boston College, while he finished his final year in the Academy with Tom. And then, she dreamed, she might find the strength and guts to finally just do it, really be together with him. But dreaming was always short lived in Lillian Hanson's mind. It was a fleeting act. _

_As she felt him wiggle beneath her slightly, she looked up from where her head rested over his heart, and traded the view of the orange ocean sunrise, for his eyes. He was so different in the mornings, so vulnerable, his short fluffed hair an even worse mess, drool at the corner of his lips that she kissed away, two small silver rings implanted in his left earlobe, and the aroma he shared with her, of sweat and dried cologne. When finally he was able to hold his gaze long enough to realize it was morning, he ran his hand through her tangled hair, and spoke. _

_"Did you sleep at all?"_

"_I couldn't." _

_Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he leaned up on his elbows as she sat still in the middle of the bed, looking out at the distant waves, and the buildings shadowed through the small curtain of the bunk. She seemed lost to him, inhibited, not the adventuresome Lily he knew so well, but one who appeared to be swallowed whole in the vastness of a new place, of a regret. Silently, he rubbed the small of her back where the curled ends of her hair met with a faded cluster of freckles. She breathed in, and exhaled deeply at the touch of his hand. It felt so foreign to her all of a sudden, as if by not making love to him as promised had changed who they were, the trust was gone in her eyes. His trust for her words. Eventually he sat up behind her, his lips meeting the soft billow of hair at the top of her head, while his arms wrapped tightly around her entire form, drowning her in sticky warmth. _

"_Tell me what's wrong." He whispered in her ear, her face emotionless but thoughtful all the same._

"_Nothing, everything's ok." _

"_Yeah right, you don't really expect me to believe that shit."_

"_Really. I'm fine. I'm just…"_

"_Just what, baby…?"_

_She didn't know exactly what to say except the obvious, but she felt sure she could at least ease his mind going into her apology. Turning around to move into his lap, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and leaned her forehead against his. Twisting her face until she could capture his lips between her own, she pulled richly at them, tasting him for the first time in too many sleepless hours, the heat from his mouth filling her cold bones with oxygen. While focused on kissing him, she suddenly felt his hand reach her exposed breast and caress gently, the air catching in the back of her throat with a moan against his mouth. He'd touched and teased her body for months now, but at this very moment, after already nearly going off the deep end once during the night, it was the simplest stroke of his thumb over her taut nipple that drove her insane, that worried her. Every bit of her was sensitive to him, and she feared what would happen if she ever found herself in someone else's arms beside his, how she imagined she'd cry in such a situation. _

"_Jeff, I'm sorry we didn't--"_

"_Shh…I don't wanna hear it. I don't care. You mean more to me than that does." He dragged her down to his lips again, hungrily but not for what she had feared in doing on this night, for just her lips, her care. _

"_Lily…" He breathed against her lips as he tried to pull away from her animation. "Lil…"_

"_Yeah…" she returned, still devouring him, "What?"_

"_Do you know how much…I love you?"_

_

* * *

**Headquarters lounge – 10:31 am**_

Shane threw open the door to the room, the empty room from what she saw. There were a few leftover coffee cups lying around, a half eaten box of donuts, and a still burning cigarette. She didn't see Jeff, she didn't see anybody. The folder in her hands was growing tense between each finger as she turned to head back out of the lounge to find him, which is when she noticed a pair of mix-matched socks hanging off the end of a beaten old couch. Sliding away to the corner, she slowly came upon the view of him stretched out on the sofa, his hat pulled down over his eyes, iPod wires running the length of his body, and his boots kicked off to the side. Trying not to laugh at him, she only moved in to pull the ear buds from his head, and catch his eyes as he woke up violently disturbed.

"Shit…what?!" His glasses were knocked off as he sat up, leaving only the stitched scars and faded bruises across his implanted eyelids. It didn't bother Shane at all to see it, it had been a weeks now and she knew she'd seen much worse. Sands though found himself the victim of another dream, or was it a memory, of something too far gone to wish on anymore.

"Chill out, I just got done in the meeting." Plopping down beside him, she handed off his boots one by one to replace, and contemplated the best way to deliver the news to him.

"Get a new case?"

"Yeah."

"And…?" He asked annoyed, reaching out towards the open floor for his glasses as he rubbed his eyes. Shane looked down to her heels to grab them for him.

"Here," she said lifting them into his hands, while the name, the information, the case rolled around inside of her brain like a flame needing to be put out immediately. She hated keeping him out of the loop, but was already concerned about what would happen when she told him everything she knew. Part of her imagined him grabbing his gun for the last time and barreling out of the office on his own terms. And then part of her wondered if he would even care anymore, if he would only be numb to the hint, to the fact that the man who murdered his best friend and partner all those years ago, was still running around free.

"Shane, just tell me what the fuck is going on already?"

She had to, there were no options anymore. He deserved to know as much as her.

"How badly do you still want Jimmy Tuzla?"

* * *

**Harrison's Shipyard – Boston, MA**

_**March 1996**_

_It was cold, even for March. The docks were covered in ice, sky grey, and as Tommy and Jeff stepped down onto the planks near the yacht they were tipped to, they were already warming themselves with laughter. _

"_Samaria…what the fuck kind of pussy name for a ship is that?"_

"_Florida criminals, man. You bring the code?"_

"_Yeah, here." Sands handed the crumpled piece of paper to Tom as they huddled near the door of the yacht's back entrance, shivering against the cold, and punching in the code number by number. They'd been on the same case for almost three months and were more than ready to get it over with. All they needed was documentation of Tuzla's operations, one sign of bad relations in the Boston community, just one sliver of evidence, and they'd been done. They'd gotten word of his yacht having sailed into the harbor the night before, and knew, that if they were going to catch him, it would have to be this morning while he was set to meet with the Corazon family of the lower east end. They got the warrant, the code from their inside source, and pushed their way through the door of the boat after Tommy ripped the lock off. _

"_Christ Hanson…" Sands chuckled, tumbling inside as Tom immediately began running through files, drawers, anything he could get his hands on, "…Somebody needs to get laid."_

"_What makes you think I'm not?"_

"_Uh…" He began, peeking inside of a stack of boxes near the couch of the lounge area, "Cause Paige moved out what…two weeks ago?"_

"_So."_

"_So…I know you. Haven't gone out since she left, and hookers…aren't really your thing, bud."_

"_Well some of us gotta have morals."_

"_Yeah, right." He laughed back, going through a pile of bank statements, contracts, all of which were under a woman's name, of little help or evidence to them, so he moved on. Tom had occupied himself in the bar, digging through countless drawers and cabinets for any sign of drugs, of which there was nothing. But as he searched, he decided to break the ice on a subject he knew Jeff was avoiding. _

"_I haven't heard from Lily in a few weeks." There was no response, and he knew why, but went on. "But she's probably busy with exams."_

"_Hmm." Sands responded, trying his damnedest to ignore the conversation. He didn't want to think about her; at least not anymore than he knew he had to, to save himself. So instead he maintained focus on the box of issued letter heads and faxes, wanting nothing more than to put the guy away and stop wasting his time. _

_Tom tried again to interject, "Harvard's just around the corner…" but Sands immediately broke into his friend's intervention with the flash of a paper, "Got it!" He stumbled over to Hanson with what appeared to be a list of names, businesses, sports creditors, as well as dozens of million dollar sums calculated. They knew exactly what it was, and heading back out of the yacht onto the dock, the only words exchanged for minutes were ones of relation to the case at hand. It wasn't until they made it down to the end of the pier that Tom finally spoke up again._

"_Jeff." Sands turned his head slightly to see Hanson standing still at the edge of the dock, looking back at him concerned._

"_What man?"_

"_What happened with you and Lily?" He didn't know how to respond, whether to repeat all of the comments that had been exchanged two weeks before, or to just leave him without a clue. He knew he owed him something; it was his sister after all, no matter how close of friends they were. But it wasn't an easy thing to do, to talk about what had gone sideways, or how, if he even knew himself. The decision hadn't even been his; it had in fact been the complete opposite of what she'd wanted. He was ready to marry Lily, he had planned to ask her after she graduated, buy the ring the day after she broke his heart. In the end of his debate, there was only one thing he could say to his best friend, his partner._

"_You better ask her." _

* * *

He could have sworn he'd conceived it in his mind. There was no way, that seven years had come and gone, his first career, best friend and partner, and now eyesight as well. And that to top the list of things that had entered his life and only remained for a shorter period than expected, that now, something was coming back, the last thing he ever imagined would. His head was whirling, spinning with flashes of light spinning out in his view of blackness. Dizzy and shaking his face, he pushed past where he felt Shane standing, and reminded himself of the lounge's layout, counting steps as he made his way to the small sink. In his entire life he'd only felt as sick one other time, and that, was entirely too different. This though, _Jimmy Tuzla, _he thought, _Tommy…_

And just as he whispered the name to himself, he felt the purging drain of something tickle his throat, and latched onto the counter for the sink, where he spit up more than he really vomited. He was choking, not puking. Choking on a dozen and a half reasons to not load Shane's gun and find his own cab. Choking on the memory of a cop taken down too soon, a boy taken from the people who needed him more than ever, a brother, a son, a friend who'd saved his own ass too many times to count. Shane came over to where he was, holding and patting his back while she asked if he was ok. He could hardly hear her over the sounds of guns and rain in his mind, over the images of Lily and Debbie Hanson on a cold day in March, a mound of dirt and a folded flag. It consumed him momentarily, and by the time he was able to stand up straight again and let Shane wipe the aftertaste from his lips, he was already formulating his plan.

"Why don't you sit down and breathe…?"

"No…" he replied, pushing his glasses higher on his nose and feeling along the edge of the counter until he could get past her again, "No time to sit Shy…we gotta go…"

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"With you genius, now get your shit. Let's go." She shook her head knowing he couldn't see her anyway, trying to discern why he thought Jack would ever go for it, or if he wasn't planning on telling the Agency, why he thought she could use the baggage of a blind brother. She didn't repeat any of these thoughts though, because she knew the consequences.

"Jeff you can't go on a case."

"Like hell I can't." Kicking open the door with his right boot, he waved his hand as invitation for her to come along, and with a roll of her eyes she did as she was told, knowing there would still be a debate on the subject all the way to the car, all the way to the apartment, all the way to Florida. More than likely…

Moving past him in the doorway and taking his arm in hers for assistance, for his eyes, she listened to his plan already playing out, the intricacies he'd thought up in mere seconds, a much better scheme than even she could have come up with on a three hour plane ride. She probably needed him more than he needed anyone else, and his personal experience as well as hers with the man in question, could not match a more prime case, and they would get him this time, at any cost.


	8. I'm Not Over

I'm Not Over

**Dr. Hanson's Office – noon**

29 years old. She was officially twenty-nine years old today, grown-up, wiser, one step closer to the woman she'd always dreamed of being. Her career had flourished, school had been a breeze, and everything in between had come and gone as nothing more than a fond memory. A few short relationships, a few long ones, a couple of blessings, a couple of regrets. At twenty-nine she could admit to having found true love, lost it, almost settled down twice, and still enjoyed her single life whenever it returned. She had a nice apartment in the city, a well paying, well respected position, and she could have anything or anyone she wanted at the very drop of a hat, or dime in some cases. Lily Hanson had made it to the peak she had once wanted to find.

But in all of the climatic wisdom and good spirits, she found utter loneliness, pain, the burden of something important to any twenty-nine year old woman in America: fate. Her heart had decided to take a chance on it a long time ago, and the result was everything she could have asked for and more, and then, fate came in another form and took it all away. Tommy was too young, no better a victim than her dad had been all those years ago. Her brother's fate was the same as his father's, and it was something she was almost certain he prided himself in, wherever he was now. But for those of them still remaining, for her and her mother, for friends like Jeff and Shane, the loss of Tom Hanson was the breaking point for everything, and it seemed it was only now just starting to heal over.

Her feet were kicked up on the desk after finishing her second cancellation call for the day, and staring out of the large window of her office, she watched the winter clouds scatter overtop of City Hall. Washington was an interesting place, but she hated it nonetheless. In truth, she'd come here for the job, for the hope that Sheldon's plans of joining the CIA were absolute convictions, and that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to repair what she'd broken. It had been her fault and she lived with the thought every single day of her life. Her fault she walked away and left him with a tear in his eye, her fault she couldn't deal with the pain of trying to love a man who reminded her of her dead brother too much, her fault that she was such a baby about the only real thing to have ever happened in her world.

* * *

**Harwich Port Cemetery- Chatham, MA.**

**_March 20__th__, 1996_**

_Her eyes were burning and frozen at the same time while she kept her gaze focused on the photo of her brother, the person she had known better than she knew herself. He looked so happy in the picture, one her mom had taken at Christmas that same year, and a second photo next to it, one she could hardly even move her eyes to. It was a photograph of Tommy in his uniform, smug, grim, tired looking already at only 25. He would have been 26 in three weeks. But he wouldn't be now, because Thomas Hanson would never grow past the sixteenth of March in a year that could have been the best, one she truly had envisioned would be. Lifting her eyes as the sermon continued and her mother's hold on her arm tightened, Lily looked up with foggy sight to see Jeff on the opposing side of Tommy's coffin, almost as if he were too scared to call himself family anymore. Shane stood next to him, her face buried in the arm of his coat as she cried, but Lily's eyes immobilized on him, only waiting until they would join for the first time in almost three weeks. _

_She'd broken up with him, and nearly had the task of crushing him into a million pieces completed on this day. He'd never looked so terrible in the four years she had known him, not when his own father died, not when his sister had almost been killed, not even when she broke up with him. Yet now, the pain of losing her and Tommy seemed to be plastered all over him, and it must have been the sense of her staring his way that finally made him lift his gaze to hers, the only thing separating them was also what had brought them together. Both of their eyes were filled anxiously with tears, staining their freezing cheeks, the howl of the bay breeze, the icy waves against the rocks at shore, the pastor's solemn tone, sniffling and sobs filling the air in a harmonic and altogether disillusioned ode. Lily wanted to run to him, to beg him to take her away and take her back, to apologize and kiss him, to love him for real again. But she didn't and instead focused back on the photos of Tom, the white roses as the only reminder of why he wasn't standing next to her now, telling her to suck it up and give Sheldon a hug. __**"Oh just forgive him…" **__he'd always say when Jeff did anything stupid, __**"Would you love him if he was half the moron he is now?" **_

_Laughing inside she heard the closing of the ceremony commence, watched as a hundred guests shook hands, bit their lips against the cold, hugged, cried, shared remorse and moved away in the direction of a tinted car procession. Lily watched as Shane came to her, hugged her as tight as she could, made a promise of getting together that week, of relaxing when she was done with exams, of something she hardly understood. The entire time her eyes were still focused on Jeff's, tears forming at the corner of her eyes to match his, and eventually when Shane let go and walked away towards the marina, he came closer. He almost appeared swollen in nature, as if he'd spent three weeks in a boxing ring, getting the life beaten out of his every pore. And in a strange way he had, they both had. _

_When she began to cry at the sight of him, he attempted to move down to her height a ways, wrap his arms around her waist for what he sensed would be the last time, and hug her, just hug, no romance, only remorse. Turning her face towards the ocean and pressing her cheek into his coat sleeve, she tried to pretend that she wasn't there at all, that she was on a boat, drifting out to sea in the middle of an easterly squall. That Jeff was there with her, insisting she wear his hat for safety, Tommy catching as many striped bass as he had room for, even her dad, comfortable with a beer and a good book. She needed the fantasy in that moment, to float away from the pain in his arms. But reality was stronger in Lily's life, it always prevailed, and she pulled herself from him after a minute or so, wiping away the tears that he couldn't get for her, and then only looked directly at him. He tried to speak to her, about how much he really did love her, and that he couldn't understand why she was giving up on the only thing they had left, and yet she heard none of it, she only saw his face, the one that would be burned into her memory for as long as forever would allow. _

_With a definitive step towards him, she balanced on the tiptoes of her black heels, and brushed her cheek against his until her mouth was settled at his ear, and whispered just as she had planned seconds before, "I will always love you __**first**__…Sheldon Jeffery Sands." A peck came and went like heat and fog blended on his cheek, and then with a swift turn of her feet she walked away from him. Not another word said, not another thought exchanged as she tunneled away into her regrets for what was to become the longest eight years imaginable. _

* * *

The wind was picking up in the trees down below, and a sprinkle of rain mimicked her own falling tears as she stood against the pane glass. It was something she couldn't help, and something she knew would only be cured by leaving work early and going home to her mom for comfort and rest. Reaching across to her desk again she dialed Allison in the lobby. When she answered, Lily could have sworn she heard the voice of a man, guessing it was Daniel, Allie's boyfriend, she only smiled and told her to cancel her appointments for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Before she left for the day she knew she needed to make a phone call to Sheldon's boss Jack, to tell him about the progress she'd made, about the medication she was planning to prescribe, and that she still needed to see him a few more times before she decided on whether he would be a continued asset to the Agency. In her heart, she knew he would be; but in her mind, she only prayed that blindness could be useful in CIA situations and conditions, with the fear that it probably wasn't at all.

Jack Morrison was sweet on the phone as she had seen so many times before, he cared about Sands whether he showed it often enough or not. And because Jeff had been his best agent for almost eight years, Jack wanted nothing more than to be sure he got the best treatment, best therapy, and best help in the long run. Responding to a few concerns of Jack's, discussing the medication further, and also talking about Shane for a short time, Lily couldn't help but be intrigued by the lack of knowledge on the agency's part. For all of their "intelligence", it was surprising no one seemed to know just how close Dr. Hanson and her patient had been before. When the phone call was finally ended, she realized it hadn't been as short as it felt, and in actuality had pushed her back another hour to almost 1:30. She quickly grabbed her purse, replaced her heels and darted out of the office and into the empty waiting room.

Allie was cleaning up the magazines when she finally found her, smiling and continuing while Lily moved to the front desk to collect all of her messages and dates for the week on top of a stack of contracts. When she turned to move away though, she noticed as if by chance, a name. _Sands. _It was settled after two others, _Carter and Miles, _on a manila folder in the center of Allie's desk. Trying not to be too nosey, she leaned in closer and noticed the heading in small print: **CN #345892**.

_CN…CN…_she tried to think of what it stood for as her hand moved down to slightly open the folder. The first page of the documents was a list of locations, all placed in either Tampa or Clearwater, Florida. Her brow twitched at this, then back to the heading **CN #345892**…_CN….CN? Case number? Yeah. Case Number. _Flipping through the papers quickly as she heard Allie finishing, she saw that there was a first class American Airlines ticket to Tampa, Florida for 9 o'clock that same night, issued to Daniel Carter. _Daniel…Allie's Agent Daniel…_who speaking of which, had risen from the coffee table, dropped a few pieces of trash in the nearby can, and walked up right behind Lily as she snatched the folder away by instinct. She tucked it into the piles of papers she had and only smiled warmly to her secretary as she walked away for the day.

A good ten minutes later she made it out of the parking garage elevator and was nearly jogging in heels to her car, fumbling with the keys, dropping a dozen things in the process and eventually sliding inside to the cold leather. She turned the heat on, the Dropkick Murphy's playing somewhere low on the stereo, and her hands still clutched around the folder. Without turning the car on completely, she sat in silence, rifling through the papers one last time for certainty of what she thought was going on. There were more details of hotel rooms, rented Ford Explorers, reservations at restaurants, and even Bucs tickets for the following weekend. None of it made sense, except to the point that it was a case, and that Shane had been chosen to manage it with Daniel and some Agent Miles as her team. Relaxing her head against the seat she began to wonder why she had been so drawn to snatch the folder, what the reasoning behind her head was for it. And just as she was leaning over to shove it into her bag and drive home, her grip loosened slightly on the folder and a single paper slid out onto the floor of the car. She reached down to grab it, and looked it over once for good measure, only to come to a conclusion she couldn't have possibly imagined coming to in a million years. Her head spun on impact of the statement on the paper…

"_We've done some further investigating with the Boston P.D ma'am, and we've been informed that the man who killed Thomas was in fact the same man he was after, the center of his case with Detective Sands."_

"_His e-enemy?" She stuttered as Lily caught her gaze from across the living room where she too was being questioned about her brother. Her mother was lost, she hardly recognized her anymore. Another loss was the worst possible situation for them now. _

"_Yes ma'am…a Jimmy Tuzla…he was working a case against him for almost two months…Jimmy Tuzla…__**Jimmy Tuzla…**__"_


	9. Mr Brightside

Mr. Brightside

**Shane's apartment – downtown Washington**

_**4:05 PM**_

Jeff stood at the island of the kitchen, sipping at a beer and listening to Shane, at least attempting to. She was mumbling about all of the consequences of her bringing him along, all of the reasons why it would jeopardize not only her promotion, but all of their lives. Yet he knew why he needed to go, and it wasn't to fire empty rounds into the sky or get himself shot a dozen times by invisible guns and men. He needed to go to be at the source of the plotting, to have first hand pride in helping Shane to get rid of Tuzla once and for all. He just needed redemption for Tommy.

"Jack is going to kill me if I bring you…I'll never hear then end of it. I mean Jesus, you're supposed to be in a debriefing in twenty minutes, not here with me…"

"Fuck the debriefing, I'm going to Florida."

"Jeff, come on…you can't see anything. I can't hold your hand through a show down, ya know."

"Then don't, but I'm going to take care of this…" Pushing back from the countertop, he tossed his empty bottle in the trash can and with his hands grazing a number of surfaces, moved off towards the office of her apartment.

"Where are you going, we have to talk about this?"

"Well…I need a first class ticket to Tampa for tonight. Are you gonna help or what?" Shane rolled her eyes, grabbed her wine off the counter and followed behind him, not wanting to give in to the idiocy of the scheme, but also knowing that with Jeff, there was only one appropriate response for any of his ideas…_fine, what the hell._

After ten minutes on the computer she had gotten him a seat on the same plane, just behind her and Carter, and packing would be next on the list. They only had an hour or so before Danny and Miles would show up with the airport taxi, expecting to pick up Shane alone. Jeff had spent enough time over at her apartment lately to know that he had at least two weeks worth of clothes scattered around, and after doing some searching, some yelling, and stubbing his toe twice, he managed to fill a duffel bag. Usually his cases were more specific to him, he would have gone through an array of hats, glasses, shirts, all kinds of memorabilia. But now it didn't seem so important to play dress-up, it only seemed important to get the job done, and part of him wanted Jimmy Tuzla to recognize him and Shane, so that the bullet that killed him, would sting twice as bad.

Shane on the other hand spent almost an hour packing, going the more feminine route of picking out the right bathing suits, and dresses, shoes, whatever else she needed to fit in with the Florida crowd, the wealthy and dirt cheap all the same. It wasn't that she was ever particularly worried about how she looked, but that was always the difference between her and her brother when it came to the job. He could walk into a bar with an I Love Lucy shirt on and take care of whoever needed a shot in ass, while she, found herself forced to conform to the situation, be it a lady or a whore, whatever it would take. And indeed it always did for her, and this job, especially this job, would be nothing short of _'taken care of'_. Closing her suitcase and carry-on, she heard the shower running from the guest bathroom, then a bottle of shampoo slam against porcelain and Jeff yell and stumble. It was the little things like that which had begun to break her heart slowly, the things that most people took for granted every day, the things she had as well as her brother. She knew he needed more help than what he was allowing people to give, he needed someone who could take care of him until he could fully take care of himself again. But Shane just didn't know if she was that person, or if maybe there was someone else better equipped, someone more willing to give themselves to him completely.

"Shel…you ok?"

He growled at her as he turned the knob on the shower and jumped out to reach for a towel. He hated her treating him like a baby, just like everyone else was, but at least he trusted her judgment and allowed her care. "Yeah fine," he replied, drying his face and neck, the patched skin over his eyes numb from the heat of the water. Leaning against the counter with his towel sloppily tied at his waist, he tried to imagine his reflection as he ran his hands over his eyes, his nose, stubbly chin. He didn't want to shave, he liked the short crop of hair that hand grown on his jaw line and across his upper lip, it suited his mood since Mexico. Rough, rustic, and especially intolerant. He found the toothbrush Shane had lent him, dropped the tube of paste at least four times before actually applying anything, then brushed until he could feel blood on his gums. It was near masochism the way he treated his body now, tearing here or ripping there, shaving until he could feel the blade cut his skin, showering until the water was hot enough to melt his back right down to his spinal cord. He enjoyed it strangely, as if abusing himself would give the world something else to worry about than his eyesight.

Tapping the toothbrush, he returned it to the holder, ran his hands through his wet hair, and left the bathroom to get dressed. As soon as he opened the door to the bedroom though, he felt dizzy, a universe of whites and grays darting out in front of him, the imaginary view of something. His head was pounding, but with little reason. He could hear Shane in the kitchen again, cooking something or other from the aroma, and pushing his way into the room, he threw on a beat up old pair of Levi's and black t-shirt, he came out carefully and light headed to further sniff at what he couldn't see. Shane was sitting at the bar with a bowl of microwavable pasta and when he tilted his head in her direction longingly and hungry, she only laughed and handed him a fork to share hers.

"Jeff, swear to me you aren't going to try to kill yourself down there. That is seriously the last thing I need to worry about right now."

"You shouldn't worry at all. You do it too much actually, makes for a terrible agent ya know."

"Never got in my way before." Her tone changed as he formed a pile of spaghetti and shoved into his mouth with more beer. Shane seemed serious this time, not so fleeting with her words, honestly wanting to know that Florida wasn't going to include an unwanted or unexpected funeral.

"I'm not going down there to get killed, okay? Happy?" As he finished trying to convince her, there was a buzz at the door.

"I'm not completely satisfied…but they're here."

"Good, let the little fucks up to get my bags." She smiled but only out of humor for his wit, not so much for his reassurance. Carter and Andy were buzzed in a few minutes later, rode the elevator up three flights and walked in through the open front door to find Sands sitting at the kitchen bar with a haughty grin and a beer.

"Hey man…" Carter chuckled, coming in further to pat him on the back. "How's it going?"

"Danny-boy?"

"Yeah, man. Fruit Loop's here too."

He laughed at the name he remembered from before Mexico, their resident rookie. "Hey Fruit Loop…they put you on the Tuzla gig?"

"Yeah, Sands they did."

"Hey, hey hey…that's Agent Sands to you rook."

Miles, a good ten years younger than both Sands and Carter bowed his head slightly and coughed before trying to respond, "But you're not a--"

"Yes I am." Sands interrupted, knowing the purpose of the statement. They assumed he'd been debriefed that day, everyone did, and of course they never expected to hear that he was in actuality packed to join them in the sun for a few weeks. Taking a final sip of his third beer, he dropped it into the trash can with a cracking of glass and smiled as he tucked his aviators on again. "I'm always gonna be an agent."

They didn't respond, and instead the nervous looks were interjected by Shane's return from the bathroom. Her perfume alone announced her entrance as both Miles and Carter darted their eyes from Sands to her, the agency's Cover Girl if ever there was one. Shane was beautiful, Jeff had always known this, which is why protection was constantly ensued. He sensed she looked good to them by the mere silence, and moving aside to stand in front of her and face the guys again, he only smirked before speaking his ever serious mind on the subject.

"How does she look boys?"

Shane rolled her eyes while Carter choked back on his tongue and smiled, "G-great….I-I mean, same as always…"

"Carter, I might not have the eyes to see you…but I still have a gun, and it will blast that look right off your face just the same."

"What look?"

"The _'I wanna fuck your sister'_ look. Trust me…" he began, sliding away from Shane and moving his face towards Danny's, "I know exactly what it is."

* * *

"_Go on and say it."_

"_Say what?"_

"_Say you wanna screw my sister."_

_Jeff laughed at the ridiculousness in Tommy's voice, while they sat down at the pier with a six pack. Lily and Mrs. Hanson were inside the house doing dishes, and Jeff could just make out her silhouette from the kitchen window down the shore a ways. He'd been immediately drawn to her, but out of respect for the family he'd just met, and the brother who was his best friend, only friend, he gave nothing more than polite gestures to Lily. She was much younger than they were, only seventeen, and he wouldn't dream of trying to do anything he would regret without the right consent first. _

_Tom sat across from him grinning and looking out at the boats, "It's no big deal man, every guy in town does."_

"_Really? I mean…she's nice, but you know…she's your sister."_

"_And…?"_

"_And…isn't that kind of thing usually, a "hands off'?"_

_Tom smiled once more and thought about the conversation he'd already had with his sister while they cleared the table. "Jeff, that's up to you and her."_

* * *

Shaking off the images and sounds in his head, he could sense Carter still staring at him while Shane and Miles moved to grab the bags from the living room. There was movement and laughter all around him in seconds, joking, questions, things he tried to ignore. It was Andy who finally broke the mode and seriously questioned Sands point in being there at all.

"Are you house-sitting for Shane or something?"

"Do I look like the house sitting type?" He replied instantly, tapping his fingers on the counter as he waited for the truth to come of the questions, while Andy began to wonder on the number of bags and a guitar case Shane had set out as he carried them to the door.

"We're only supposed to be gone a week and a half. What's all this crap?"

"Well actually it's-"

"That's my crap, Loop." Sands concluded as he threw open the fridge door to grab another beer. "Don't screw with it."

"Uh…why do you need a bag?"

"You really are the poster child for brain depravation aren't you?" Just as he managed to rip the cap off of number four and lift it to his lips, Shane stepped into the kitchen and pulled it slowly away from his lips.

"That's enough for now, they won't let you on the plane drunk." Wiping the spilled liquid from his chin he scowled at her as he heard her pouring it down the sink, and then only walked away carefully with counted steps to the front doorway. Andy and Carter stared in confusion, begging Shane for an immediate answer.

"He's not seriously on the case is he?"

"Yes."

"Shane, come on…if Jack finds out…"

"Jack doesn't need to know." Picking up her purse and slinging it over her chest, she listened to Carter still, and only shut him up by walking to the door and taking Jeff by the arm to lead him out. Looking back inside while she dangled her keys, she glanced fiercely at the other guys, "Let's go."

* * *

**O'Hare International Airport – Chicago, Illinois**

**_February 16__th__, 1994_**

_A funeral had brought them here together, and now they were headed home. At least, to the only place Jeff had ever considered home. His dad had moved Shane and him around so much as kids he never truly understood the definition of a home. If it had room service, Tom and Jerry cartoons, and a turn down each night, he considered it such. His mother didn't need to be alive to tuck him in, or cook him dinner, and his dad didn't need to be around to play catch, he only needed his sister and the emergency funds. This of course had eventually changed as he got older, as he met people through his final year of high school in Boston, in college, and eventually meeting the Hanson family his first semester in the Academy. It was then that he realized what a home was, and even without their father there to be an example, he understood through their stories of what a task like fatherhood was meant to be. Congressman Sands, Sergeant Major Sands, was not this form. _

_Their flight left for Boston at two, and it was 1:30. Lily had gone to the restroom while Shane and Tom went to get something to eat on the first floor of the airport. And Jeff, he only stood at the large glass frame of the hanger, watching the planes fly in and out over the distant runway. It was raining, cold, windy as usual in Chicago. He tried to remember the last time he had been there with his sister and dad, another congressional meeting, another trip to hell. There was never anything to do but get in trouble, piss his dad off, and eventually learn the consequences with a belt or shoe or whatever was available to the still ranking officer who controlled his life between the hours of eleven PM and five AM each day. The man who had at one time been gentle, loving, in love. But through childbirth and death, had managed to grow callous, ignoring the lives he'd help to create, and only giving attention when rights had been wronged in his daily absence. Breathing in deeply one last time he counted the torches as they ran the length of the strip out of boredom, curiosity, and in a pure effort to erase his mind of its real problem. _

_Coming out the bathroom from the other side of the flight gate, Lily brushed her wet hands against her skirt and looked up to see Jeff far away at the window. His silhouette swayed loose, hands in his pockets, ball cap tugged down onto his messy hair. She knew only part of what he was going through, the acceptance of loss, death, his only father. But at the same time, she only knew of Congressman Sands from what Shane had spoken of, and what she had torn from Sheldon a few times. It was a soft spot for both of them, especially him. Pulling her hair back around her shoulder, she walked slowly in his direction, noticing how the rain on the windows paralleled with his body and mood so ideally. He was lost in a sense, as if he didn't know where to be, or who to be, but Lily at least knew partly where he belonged, where she wanted him. She stepped in behind him, a whiff of his dried cologne from earlier in the morning carried to her nose, his back sighing heavily and boots tapping the carpeted floor. Bringing herself to him, she wrapped her arms around his waist so that they came up to rest together on his chest, her cheek pressed into his hoodie. Almost instantly his body jumped at the scare, but stilled and eventually numbed itself under her touch. He brought one hand from his pocket to cover both of hers, breathing deeper, richer as he continued to watch the planes. She didn't need to say anything to him, he just needed to feel her, the warmth of another human being, the care of someone. It had been a long time since he had just let someone truly care, and Lily it seemed, had been that breaking point. _

_After a few minutes though, he tired of the silence and spoke to her over his shoulder, "I'm sorry about Valentine's Day."_

"_Why are you sorry?" She asked quietly, releasing her hands and stepping around to land between the window and his eyes. _

"_We didn't do anything special, and I really wanted to."_

"_Jeff it's not a big deal, this was more important." _

"_No, no it wasn't."_

"_What are you talking about? It was your dad's funeral, of course it was." Stunned at his remark, she furrowed her brow as he took her hands in his and bit his lower lip the way he always did when he was being completely honest about something. She couldn't understand it. _

"_**Nothing**__, is more important to me than you are. Especially not my dad."_

"_How can you say that?" He noticed small teardrops forming at the corner of her eyes and when he moved his hand up to brush them away, she stepped to the side and threw herself down into a chair by the window. He stood for a moment watching her, not sure whether he was ready to explain all of the details his memory had scarred him with, or if he wanted to upset her more or less with them. Lily was sensitive to the subject of dad's, especially now the subject of fatherly death, and it wasn't going to be easy to tell her the reason why his dad wasn't a priority to him. The funeral was only met with required attention, not love. And however harsh that might have seemed to the outside world, for Jeff, it suited perfectly fine. _

_He eventually moved down to sit beside her, his hand pulling her body towards his, and eventually her face with tears streaming down. "Lily, I'm sorry. I know that you were close with your dad, I know how much you loved him, but my dad…" He stopped once to look out over the airport terminal, catching his thoughts in a tight net and then continuing, "…I never had that."_

"_Then tell me what you did have, Jeff." _

* * *

**Reagan National Airport, Washington D.C**

_**8:46 PM**_

"Any jewelry sir?"

He shot himself out of a thought process, drawing away from 1994 and everything connected to it, and back into the realization of where he was. From a short distance he could hear continual beeping, the clanking of silver and gold into plastic, and the voice of an unruly crowd.

"Huh?" He asked in need of repetition, still not sure what had been said in between blank out points.

"Do you have any jewelry?"

"Uh…my watch…" Sands replied, unwinding it from his wrist and reaching out to where he imagined a bucket would be waiting, and it was. As he dropped it in the bucket and stepped forward to the woman's voice, he was stopped by a hand on his chest and the sound of buzzing as the security guard scanned his body with a wand. He tried to hold back any unnecessary comments or laughter, but in his mind he pictured just how vulnerable he looked, how much he looked like so many of the women who had succumbed to him before. And now here he was, surrounded by people and noise, an airport audience, and the hands of a woman falling over every inch of his deprived body. It was humoring.

When there was a beeping gesture just over where the lady scanned his chest, Sands stopped his thoughts as he was burdened with further questioning, "You sure you don't have anything else, sir?"

"Do you see anything else?"

"Sir…any more jewelry or electronics?" He could sense the woman growing disturbed by him already, and decided it was best to relax and submit himself for now. Shane and Carter had finished and were returning their shoes when they looked over to see the problem ensuing, and rolling her eyes sharply, Shane felt she knew the basis of what was about to come.

"I have my nipples pierced, does that count?" Indeed she had been right, her brother the cynical stand up.

"Sir, there's a long line…"

"That's okay baby, I'm sure they'll enjoy the show. Go ahead, frisk me." Stretching his arms out further, he could feel the woman's breath against his cheek as she stepped aside, and in only a matter of seconds felt two hands on his shoulders holding him still. He twitched at the fingers and beeping grazing the insides of his legs, and only tried to remain as calm as possible. Shane immediately started laughing, and hearing this he immediately began to wonder why the hands were less gentle than before, and there were no sounds, or warm breathing. His jacket was ripped out in a matter of seconds, his shoes, belt, more wand beeping, more people laughing, and then finally the sound that would disturb his mind for the rest of the trip, the sound of a man.

"A cell phone. Stop screwing with our security, sir." He stammered with a crude grumble as he handed off Sands phone to the female security guard, and pushed him through the metal detector. Once on the other side, he could hear Shane, Carter and Andy directly in front of him, laughing their asses off.

"Will you all shut the fuck up?"

"Hey man, you wanted to come on this journey." Carter grabbed his belt and boots and handed him to them one by one as the crowd continued laughing and he replaced his disheveled clothing. Pinning his glasses back on, and dropping his cell phone into his pocket, he waited until Shane came to take his arm and they began walking away as she giggled,

"Bet you never thought you'd get a hand job from Bernie Mac, huh bro?"

Shaking his head with a grin of near satisfaction he replied, "What can I say…I like it rough."

After a twenty minute walk through the terminal, past gift shops, clothing stores, restaurants, and the voices of beautiful women he couldn't see, Sands heard Andy call out their gate number and then was helped to a seat by Shane. They still had a half an hour before takeoff, and she offered to get him something to eat while they waited. Having some strange craving for Mexican food, whether it be by the basis of his thoughts or just his gut, she nodded and took off to go find a Taco Bell. Miles and Carter went off to find alcohol, and as usual, the blind man was left to fend for himself.

"Oh no…don't worry about me. I'll find a dog to help," he quipped as he slid down further into the chair and shoved the ear buds of his iPod in. He drowned out every sound; let his sense take a break for a while, although his nose was still in full rounds. Catching a whiff of perfume as women passed by, or cologne with other men, even something that smelled distinctly adolescent to him, though he wasn't quite able to place it. He focused on the sound of steel guitars and Steven Tyler's big mouth for a few more minutes, scrunching his nose up as the aroma deepened, came closer. It was something sweet, something baked, something kid-friendly, and it was that alone that put him on edge. He scooted over in his chair a ways to remove the thought from his head, focused on the music, and after only a few more minutes of using his tactic, felt the soft jabbing of a fingertip in his upper arm. With a sigh of annoyance, he pulled one of the buds out and turned in the direction of the greeting.

"What?"

"Hello." It was a voice no more aged than his boots, five, six maybe, and distinctly female. He was already distracted by it, and nothing had even been said. Children were not something he understood, although once a child, it was the idea of a small person with only a quarter of his wit trying to match him that always left him uneasy with kids. They were way too smart most of the time, at least the ones he got stuck with. He gave a half-ass smile and turned back away to concentrate on the airport noises in one ear, and Bob Dylan in the other. But despite another attempt, he could feel the child's eyes on his, burning holes in his face.

"My name is Alex. What's your name, mister?"

She was still talking to him, pushing him for all he was worth, causing him to finally turn his head back and reply if only to get her off his case quicker, "Jeff."

"I know a Jeff…he's mean to me." Feeling her sticky fingers tap on the sleeve of his jacket, he narrowed his brow beneath his glasses, still smelling what he began to place as cookies in her hand. Her lips were smacking together as she spoke, her plastic shoes scraping against the chair she was more than likely standing up in, _as midgets do…_he thought. "Are you going to Florida too…huh?" She poked harder as he flinched with anger.

"Yeah kid. Go away."

"Want a cookie?"

"No, I don't eat booger chip."

"They're _chocolate_…" She emphasized with pleasure and leaned against his shoulder, "Here try one, my mommy made them."

"Well aren't you special." When he reached his hand out to take one and relieve his partial hunger, the little girl noticed his hand move around in circles just over and to the side of her Ziplock bag, and grew increasingly curious. "The bag is right here," She concluded, holding it closer to him, by which he only circled it again and huffed loudly in aggravation.

"I can't see it stupid, I'm blind."

"You're blind, Mister?"

"Oh you're a parrot too huh…just my luck." Quieting, she reached into the bag and took out two cookies, and then sitting down in the chair, reached over to where his hands were settled on his lap. Sands growled at her touch first, and then calmed slightly when he felt her place a crumbly cookie in the palm of each of his hands, which were three times the size of her own.

And just as he began to feel a smile cross his face out of natural force, there was the sound of an otherwise hot chick's voice calling out the girl's name, "Alex! Honey, come here…"

She jumped down from the chair with a hand on his knee for support and with a quick, "Bye," darted off with her cookies and left him alone again for another ten minutes or so until Shane came back with his food. He didn't tell her about the girl, although she did wonder where he'd acquired the cookies, she didn't press him for an answer. They ate together and waited for the call for the flight, and just as Carter and Andy came back with beer induced breath, a woman's voice came over the intercom system at Gate 22.

"_**Ladies and gentleman, Flight 361 for Tampa International will now begin boarding. All business class ticket holders to begin, business class please."**_

"Come on, that's us." The guys darted off to the attendant's desk, while Shane helped Sands with his stuff, and they walked over to meet them. When they got there though, Carter was fumbling with his jacket and bag, digging through it on the counter while the two blonde attendants looked on annoyingly.

"Sir, if you could just step aside…"

"No, it's ok I've got it right here." Danny continued searching with the hope that he didn't leave it sitting somewhere on accident, all though they all knew he was prone to do such a thing. Sands stood with a twisted brow, still tearing into his taco wrap, and wondering on the situation, "What the hell is going on?"

"I think Carter lost his ticket." Shane replied, letting go of Sands' arm to walk over to Danny. "Where did you last have it?"

"I thought I remember putting the folder in my bag before I left…damnit."

"Sir, please if you could just-"

"Yeah, alright!" He shouted, moving away with the group, Sands laughing out of habit at Carter's incompetence and Miles and Shane still trying to help him look for the ticket. "God, damn. I thought I had it with me…"

"Well, maybe you should just book another seat, business class if never full." Zipping up his bag again and throwing it over his shoulder he looked to Shane for a moment, assuming it to be the best option, "Yeah, you guys go on ahead of me. I'll get whatever they have left."

"That won't be necessary Agent Carter…" a voice broke in to the crowd of them from the middle of the line, and before a face could be matched from behind the burly shoulders of an older man, they saw a hand outstretched and waving a ticket. Sands ears perked up at what was happening, and tearing the second ear bud from his head, listened intently to the voice as if by his body's own innate sense. As Shane and Carter moved in closer to where the voice was, they saw Lily poke her head out with a wide smile.

"Lily…what the hell are you doing here?"

_Lily…_Sands thought to himself with a gaping jaw and hardened brow, _No way. _"Lily?"

"Oh I just thought I cruise in and save Danny's ass. Here ya go," she grinned, handing off his ticket and case folder. He sighed and thanked her, while the group of them stepped even further off to the side, and Shane questioned her.

"You came all the way down here just to bring him that?"

"Sort of, I actually came here because this ticket…" she began, pulling out a slip from the back pocket of her jeans, "…says, that I am supposed to occupy seat…42 G, all the way to Tampa."

"You're on our flight?" Sands asked in shocked reverence as he came to stand closer beside where he could smell her Chanel perfume, still the same as it was in 96', only fresher. "Yeah…I'm on your flight. I'm also on your case."

"What?"

"Are you deaf now too? You heard me." Scowling with a short chuckle he moved his head in Shane's direction as she stepped in with a surprised expression, "What do you mean…on our case?"

"I mean, I'm going to help you guys. I'm going with you."

"Lily…I don't think-"

"No fucking way." Sands concluded, taking her arm slightly and pushing her back away from the boarding line.

"Yes. I am."

"Oh Christ," he groaned, holding her upper arm and stepping out further to where he could hear silence and sensed it was open grounding. Pulling her arm back she tried to fight him but he kept her in place until he forced her out onto the tiled lane of the terminal. "You really are just as stubborn as you were ten years ago."

"Eight years ago."

"Who gives a shit…it doesn't matter, you're not going."

"Why not? Don't think I can handle it…you're blind remember."

"But I'm also a trained agent, sweets."

"Only because you didn't go to the debriefing." He was stunned at her knowledge despite everything else, how she had managed to somehow come across Carter's misplaced folder, get all the information she needed, as well as that on his uniform condition, and end up at the airport terminal just in time to drive him crazy. The adventure seeping in her pores, genetic from what he had come to know, she wasn't afraid of anything anymore. It was so completely 'Lily Hanson,' that it scared him.

"I need to go Jeff."

"Why? Razor blades and vodka not getting the job done, you'll kill yourself."

"No I won't, I know how to fire a gun."

"Yeah!" He yelled out with his hands up in frustration as people around him began to stare, "You can fire a pistol off Morris Island in the middle of winter…not a 47' in a crowd of angry mob bosses."

"I know who you're after."

"Good for you. Now go home." Angered by her as she was by him, he turned to walk away with Shane standing somewhere nearby, and Carter and Miles already boarding. The terminal was empty save for the three of them, and as she stood with her backpack tied to her shoulders, lip pierced in desperation, and watching his back drift away again, she knew she needed to plead her case, the same case they all three needed to plead.

"Jeff…" He stopped out of practice with her, the sadness in her voice almost more than he was willing to bear again. Knowing that if he didn't turn back around it would only be a regret added to his already floor length list, he breathed in deep, exhaled and spun back in her direction. He couldn't see her, but he felt her in that moment.

"What?"

"I need to go. I need to help…_for Tommy_."


	10. Such Great Heights

**I want to thank all my readers on this new story, I've been working really hard on it for a long time and am now just getting around to posting it a few chapters at a time. I hope you all continue to enjoy, and a special thanks to both sandsjunkie and linalove for their kind comments! **

**Author's Note: **Anyone who is a fan of music like me, or even addicted to music like me, may or may not recognize certain titles that match each of the chapters of my story. This is mostly the cause of inspiration, or otherwise just great titles, and I plan to make a list of the credits to those bands or singers at the end of the story, but just wanted to point it out for now. Also, all of Red Sox references are of my own personal fanticism for the team, born and raised a Red Sox girl. Just wanted my main character to somehow relate to me, a trick I find helpful sometimes.

**Thanks again**, all comments or criticism is greatly welcomed and appreciated :) -Jackie-

* * *

**Such Great Heights**

En route to Tampa, Florida

_10:45 PM_, somewhere over South Carolina

Call if fate indeed that landed Sands and Lily in the seats directly next to one another. Call it a playing spirit of fire and ice. Call it serendipity and all that it implies, but what neither of them could deny was that sharing elbow space and leg room for an hour and twenty minutes wasn't exactly the hardest thing in the world. In fact, it made them both smile; blindly. While she focused on a good book for the first half of the trip, Sands stayed silently listening and finger drumming with the music in his head. He was trying to ignore the idea of Lily being on a plane headed for trouble, and the very real notion that he had actually allowed it to happen. Even Shane hadn't tried to stop her, and they both knew why. They all wanted the same thing out of the trip to Tampa, they all wanted revenge. And after a good hour of contemplating it over steel guitars and crazy beats, he eventually tore the headphones from his ears and sipped lightly at his iced rum, while trying to place in his mind what it was she was thumbing through beside him. Lily was always a quit wit, with a keen eye for words and descriptions, and she was in truth the one who had first gotten him to enjoy the "art of reading", as she once referred to it.

A few more pages turned, one more sip of his drink and he couldn't help it anymore, he had to break the silence of his head, "What's so fascinating about that book?"

She looked up from the page and scratched her eyes with relief, having never realized he was listening in. He looked tired to her, as though he needed not only sleep, but a break from life altogether. His glasses were tilted back, his chin still stubbly, and a drop of rum sitting on his lip where he couldn't feel its presence, but she ignored it all to respond, "It just speaks the truth, that's all. I like honest writers."

"You always did."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She retorted with a hushed anger, noticing the smile playing at his mouth.

"Christ nothing, you just always were into knowing the truth of life."

"Oh…well, it's important to know."

"So who's telling the truth tonight?" She paused before answering his question, looked down to the words before her, and then peered back up with a smirk of knowing innocence. "Ginsberg. Ever heard of him?"

"Don't flatter me, Lily."

"You still like him?"

"From what I can remember seeing." There was silence at this note as he lowered his face away in almost a pained resistance to admit that he would never read the pages of a book again, that he could never just see words or letters or names again, except in the back of his mind. And just as Lily began to turn back and read again, avoiding the confrontation of his hurt for the time being, he tilted his head back against the leather seat, and breathed down her neck, "Read me some."

And so at the request, she did. The poetry took off from between her lips like sprinkles of warm rain in a cold winter, seducing him with sadness, heightening his sense of touch and scent as he drank in her perfume, the orange zest of her shampoo, the sweet soil of her skin, and as his arm met hers just as closely on the rest between them. It was like soaking up a memory, sponging it until the rest of the world dried and disappeared. Sands couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so full, so content in his vulnerable state. While the words continued to flow, he listened to her tone fluctuate with emphasis over certain words, _joy, sin, kiss, love…_all of the things that came to his mind before she even spoke them. And when she finished reading the last seven poems of her book, she closed the pages and settled it into her bag on the floor, waiting for him to respond. Eventually, with a heavy breath and shuffle of feet, he did.

"You know…your brother would kick my fucking ass if he were here right now."

She didn't respond; only let him continue with his point. "He'd never forgive me if something happened to you. He'd rather kill me."

"Then I guess I have to prove to you that nothing will."

When she spoke his mind stopped for a slow moment, to dance around her words in all objective hope for the situation. He hoped she was right and that involving herself in a CIA investigation wouldn't prove fatal. He hoped that she would get what that they were all after. But most of all, he hoped that having his doctor around him now, analyzing his every thought and move, wouldn't jeopardize the past he had buried neatly in a pine box a half a foot under. It was too close to the surface for any comfort, the emotions he'd bottled without a cork, the pain he'd stored away in a shoebox, all of it too easy to bring back to life. Sands needed to know that he wasn't going to have to worry about returning to 1996, or 1992, or Chatham, MA for that matter. He needed to be confident with Lily around, which at the moment, wasn't happening.

"Can I make a peace offering at least?" She finally asked, reaching down into her backpack for something as he listened to the rattling and tossing of junk on the floor. Shaking his head in annoyance, she came back up and placed in his hand a rounded tube, something with a cap, something with a label. "It's called Zofran, something new we're trying with patients. It's good, I promise. And it should help with the headaches and nausea."

He had never told her about his killer headaches, or any other symptoms for that matter, and turning the bottle over in his hands and facing her, he became instantly curious, "I never told you--"

"Sands," she interrupted, a note of her using his Agency name now instead, "I'm a doctor, I get paid for this remember. Trust me…" She smiled, and placed her hand over his to enclose his fingers over the bottle again, "It'll help a lot."

* * *

**Tampa International Airport, Florida**

_11:28 PM_

After another twenty minutes of shared small talk, another drink or two, and a safe landing over a stretch of warm, glowing runway, the group scattered from the plan with their stuff and made their way through the quiet terminal. Lily and Shane went off to use the bathroom, while the guys took Sands off to baggage claim. Lily made sure they got her stuff too, and while in the bathroom, was finally hit with the conversation she knew had taken too long already.

"God, I can't believe you came with us…you're just as crazy as I remember." Shane mocked, standing at the mirror while she wiped the sleep and makeup from her eyes. "Lily Hanson…shrink turned CIA bait."

"Bait?"

"Yeah, you're part of the team now…as was your choice. And trust me…you are most definitely our bait should we need it." As Shane gestured amusingly up and down Lily's form, the women laughed, reapplying whatever was needed and reminiscing.

"Shane, you remember that time we drove to Philly together?"

"Are you kidding, of course I do. Picked up those male strippers with your Christmas money."

"Yeah…" she laughed, puckering her lips and fixing the messy braid her hair was in. "I miss that, we were insane."

"We were…" Shane sighed, smiling once more back at her in the mirror and then lifting her bag over her shoulder. "Come on Hanson, before we piss off the agencies finest." Grabbing Lily's arm the two ran out of the bathroom and downstairs to baggage claim as if they were eighteen again, a couple of goofy high school girls trying to be grown-up. And they certainly looked and sounded the part when they made it to where the guys were sitting with the bags, tired frowns on their face, and a snoring brother at the end of the bench. Breaking the link of their elbows, Shane went to wake up Sands, while Lily found Carter and Andy immediately drawn to her with conversation and lame jokes. She was glad for it though, because their company kept her from having to think about Jeff, and as she followed them off to help with getting the rental cars, she tried her damndest not to turn around and see him. The pills had knocked him out almost cleanly from what she could tell, and she was glad for it, he needed the rest, his body required it and had for a long time.

"Paging Dr. Hanson…" With a mocking beeping and static sound beneath his closed hands, Lily shook off her thoughts and glanced over to see Danny laughing with widened eyes. She had never noticed how funny he was when he was hanging around her office with Allie in the middle of the afternoons, but he made her feel welcome to their little group at least, which was good enough for her. "Stat…and clear!"

"I'm a psychologist you moron."

"Oh right, so you'd say things like, "And how did that make you feel," right?"

Shaking her head with a giggling sigh, she followed the two of them out to where Shane was standing with Sands, a few brand new black Explorers pulling up seconds later. The windows were tinted, rims polished, engines fueled, everything needed for a good CIA getaway car in her mind. Carter insisted on driving one of them, while Shane begged for the other set of keys, and from their Lily knew she had two options. She could relieve her mind slightly and travel to the hotel with the Marx brothers, or take a chance and spend more quality time with the people she loved to remind herself of, her past.

"Hey, Harvard!" Her head turned to the left, where from the front passenger's seat of the first truck was Carter, a smile on his face and open arms, "You're with us!"

And because Shane was too preoccupied with the bags, she ran off to where they were, jumped in and took off. Sands had heard the entire thing from the passenger seat of his own transportation, the window rolled down to let the chipped Florida breeze inside and against his face, warm in comparison to Washington, but still stinging. He heard them call for her, heard her run off, and heard everything between her sigh and the car's engine as it sped off away from the airport terminal. Somehow he had wondered if she'd ride with him and Shane to the hotel, but apparently there was still unfinished ground for Lily Hanson, and apparently Sands had to step up his game as the laureate ex best friend and lover.

It only took twenty minutes or so to find the hotel from the airport once they hit the expressway, and with a few of the city that one couldn't possibly beat, Lily found herself hanging out of the back window in the cold January wind. This was her first trip to Tampa, a place she'd more often heard about than her own hometown, and also been warned of. Crime was substantial, drugs were easy to get here, and the sports teams were each individually operating off of inside barrier men with enough guns, funds, and hookers to take over the world. It was a twisted city compared to anywhere she'd known, but it felt good, looked like fun, and with a ruckus of Carolina Liar on the radio and the guys arguing up front, she couldn't think about much else expect her choice to come along and how brilliantly her mind had worked in the hours between skipping out on work and running to the airport.

"Where the fuck did Jack stick us this round?"

"Umm…we're staying at the Hard Rock."

"No kidding?" Carter replied with a smile, and then turned the radio up as he yelled and Lily laughed at him. The two guys continued argued the entire way there, and although amusing at points, she opted in the back of her mind to ride in whatever car Shane and Jeff were in next time, if only for her mind's sake. Eventually she was saved when they pulled up at the valet, and much to her surprise, were welcomed like celebrity V.I.P's. All it took was a flash of some strange card that Danny had, a few words between the bellhops and Shane, and the five of them had not only their luggage ushered away, but the cars, and their own inhibitions. After a few minutes, Lily looked over to see Jeff standing idly with his hands lowered to the ground. Shane and the other guys had taken off into the hotel, and so she felt only fairness in finding out what he needed help with. When she approached him he instantly called her out, recognizing her perfume in the breeze, and only kept reaching for the strap of his guitar case.

"Let me help you."

"No." He replied harshly, pushing her hand away and finally grasping the strap and tossing it over his shoulder. "I told you not to waste your time on me."

"You can't do everything yourself Jeff."

"I can do anything I want to," Again with a gruff, he moved past her and to where he felt the heat of the moving doorways open and shut. Once inside of the hotel's lobby he could hear Aerosmith playing loudly overhead, glasses clinking in a nearby bar, high heels on tiled floors, the dinging sound of elevators, and the distant dropping of coins into metal casino games. He didn't need Lily's help to know what was around him, he could hear it, smell it, feel it still. And when she came inside after him, standing at his side while they waited for the other three to pay for the rooms, she tried not to interrupt what looked like his thought process; she only wanted to be near him in case he could ever admit to needing help.

"Stop breathing on me and say something." He finally interrupted the silence, clinging tighter to his guitar case.

"Why the hell do you have to be such a pain in the ass? I only wanted to help you…"

"I don't need your help, Lily. I'm abso-_fucking_-lutely sure about that, ok?"

"Fine." She replied coldly, and turned away to watch the other cars pulling into the valet. They stood opposite one another's backs, listening to the music echoing around them, the sounds of laughing blondes and suitcase wheels. Lily wanted to reach out and apologize to him for how life had turned out. And Sands, wanted nothing more than to bite the bullet and accept her help, accept it to the point of letting her back into his world again, back into his everything. This was all missed hope though when only seconds later Shane came to grab both of them and haul them upstairs to the rooms. All three of guys were sharing one of the suites, while Shane and Lily opted to bunk together, for privacy's sake and to remember the girls they used to be.

It was almost two by the time everyone was settled, Carter and Andy passed out on the beds, while Sands took over the couch for the night, strumming lightly at his guitar from memory and blind practice as he felt that imminent cold wind blow in from the balcony. The same wind, that Lily herself was breathing in only ten feet and a door away, at what felt like the top of the world, the top of her existence. In the morning she would have to call Allie to cancel all of her appointments for two weeks, and that in itself, was freedom much needed.

* * *

**Fenway Park – Red Sox vs. Angels**

_April 23__rd__, 1994_

"_I don't want to talk about it."_

"_Well too bad, we're talking…and we're talking about it. Come on, talk."_

"_No." Tossing her hair back over her shoulder, Lily fell into a slanted walk as she stormed towards the lower level stairwell to the stadium. She had no intentions of talking to him about it at all, because she wasn't ready for him to know how she felt. She'd already missed the starting pitch to the game, and she wasn't about to let her boys fall away into another April pitch without her there, beer sloshing in her hand as she jogged back into the open aired lights, Jeff's cap tugged halfway down over her eyes. From somewhere distant she could hear his shoes hitting the pavement behind her, never calling out her name, but his breath exhausted from the haul. She hated to leave him out of things, she hated to not want to talk to him, but right now it was her only option. _

_Once back to her seat, she found a few of her girlfriends and tried to occupy her mind with the game before he made it returned to her, and when he did, he knew exactly what she was doing. So he played it off as finely as ever, sipped at his beer, cheered with the guys some, and watched her closely, as closely as he imagined he could in that moment. Whatever was rumbling in her pretty little head would stand at least another hour's chance against a much needed confession, he knew her too well to expect anything else. And then, when she was good and ready to spill her guts on the subject, he'd be there waiting with a smile and a kiss should she need one. For the time being though, as he watched her yell out at Rodriguez, and give the coach a piece of not only her mind but the rest of Massachusetts, he was charmed completely as he always had been. Something in the way she moved, nineteen years old with the wit of a thirty-four veteran to life and the laugh of a child. He couldn't help but stare at her the same way he had that first night at the Hanson's house, across from the dinner table, between peas and mashed potatoes. And far away from consciousness he began to carefully extend his hand between hips and arms to where he saw hers hanging by her thigh. Hooking his fingers quickly around pinky, her eyes darted away from the field and back towards him, a smile, innocence, clarity and willingness to participate with the conversation. _

_Just as soon as Boston took home. Just as soon as she remembered why she was ever even mad at him. _


	11. Banana Pancakes

**Graphic Warning For This Chapter**

* * *

**Banana Pancakes**

Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – Tampa, Florida

_January 16__th__, 2004_ – 9:28 am

There was sun on her face for the first time in months, bright, orange sun in fact. This was why people came to Florida, to feel this rampant glow every morning. As she tossed over in bed again between the Egyptian cotton sheets, she felt the cooler spot that had been neglected through the night, and breathed softly into her pillow. She wasn't quite ready to wake up yet, and tightening her eyes, she let herself fall back into a half sleep. Partly interrupted by the sound of the shower running in the bathroom across from her bed, and partly by the sound of shouting from the guys' room next door to them. Nothing though, she convinced herself, would get her out of the sweet comfort of the pillow, out of her sheets, out of her room for at least another hour. Yet neglecting to remind herself of who she had ventured to the sunshine state with, Lily left herself wandering in aimless napping, just about the time the room phone rang. Repeated, over and over a ring, until she managed to stretch out through white cotton, and grasp the receiver.

"Hello?" She questioned raspy and weak, rubbing the sleep from the corners of her eyes.

"Yes…" the voice began, a tone she could hardly make out from her drowsiness, "This is a 9:30 wake up call for a Mr. Hawk."

"Mr.…who…Hawk, who?"

"Mike Hawk. Wake up call…for _Mike Hawk_." The voice stuttered with a hushed chuckle, as she sat up to analyze what had just been repeated to her. Her brow was twisted disturbingly when she finally understood it, and rolling her eyes, she returned to the call. "Nice try, Jeff," hanging up loudly after.

She fell back in a gust to the sheets again as Shane came out of the bathroom in one of the fluffy robes, smiling.

"Who was on the phone?"

"I believe it was the person who skinny dips in your gene pool." Shane laughed and came to sit on the bed opposite Lily, brushing her dark hair through.

"I think he's missed you."

"Has a genius way of showing it. His file says he's thirty-four, but he acts four still."

"Hey I won't argue with you, my brother's a douche if ever I saw one." With a gruff, Lily giggled into the pillow face down then pushed up to find her own toiletries for a shower. It was only when she was trying to decide what color lingerie to wear for the day, that she instantly wondered what exactly the plan was for the case, and turning around to Shane, she began to question it.

"What's the deal for today, are we going somewhere?"

"Not you yet."

"Why not?"

"We've gotta case this asshole first, his house and the bars down on the beach. Then…we'll decide on you, Lil. Okay?"

"Yeah…" she replied disappointed, but clinging to her clothes with a smile. Shane was quick to retort with a worthwhile option, one she knew would probably get an interesting response in itself.

"And good news is…you won't be alone all day. Jeff's sticking to the hotel too."

"Oh…_great_…" she turned to go into the bathroom, after giving her hope and goodbye to Shane. Being thrilled by the news of having to share a wall with Jeff all day long was tough, but she knew that there were worse things, and it might even give her a chance to make some sort of a breakthrough with him, medically speaking of course. More than anything, Dr. Lily Hanson wanted to get down to the bottom of Mexico, what had happened, why and by whom. All of the facts left undisclosed on his file in her suitcase. All of things that he would have told her easily ten years ago, and now probably only under the influence of flirtation and sweet memories.

* * *

Next door, under a sprinkle of warm water and between mumbling politicians on CSPAN from across the bathroom, Sands was livid with the urge to rid his head of the thoughts he'd slept on, the ones that had left him desperately clinging to a sheet for modesty's sake early in the morning. The jets of the shower weren't helping at all, only improving his ability to recall the feel of a woman's fingernails digging tightly into his shoulders and back. It had been almost two months now since he'd found the pleasurable company of anyone but his own hand, and it was another one of those days. Reaching down to where he felt nothing but pained, he tried to stroke easily, bringing himself into some sort of distorted pleasure. Yet every time his mind attempted to play out a scenario, whether it be the Coors twins or Britney Spears, he was left hopelessly with nothing but more pain, and more darkness. His hand stopped moving to rest on the tiled wall of the shower, cool, urgent almost, playing against the heat and steam surrounding him.

And then, in his final moment of care for anything at all, he shook the water from his dripping hair, and thought about what had so haunted him the night before. It wasn't a perfectly proportional celebrity or a chick from a sports ad, it was the face of a young girl, no more aged in years than his lasting erection was in days. She came to him with dark hair, glowing eyes of the richest blues, sauntered about in his head, blew kisses, danced to The Pogues, and wore a ragged old baseball cap. A girl the last time he'd seen her and a woman now, without his will to view or guess. She had come to him in a nightmarish delight, from between the walls of a hotel suite, and circled around until he was eventually awoken with pain. And the further he thought about it now, the quicker he began to notice his finger stride against the underside of his hardness, pulling, extracting everything with force, ridding the contents of what he knew was going anywhere. He felt her inside of him, trapped, slicing away at his soul for almost a week now, only a week. A week's pain, brought on by eight years of much worse. His hand shook violently over his length, pumping at the pressure of one of the shower's jet, standing, waiting, wishing that he could be free of it. He pictured her lips, tangy, fruitful still, her hair, long and twisted into delicate curls of the darkest of the Cape's stone, her breasts, firm, small enough to call his own and just enough to satisfy his every need, as she had for those four long years. Lily was everywhere, all around him, young Lily, grown-up Lily, Lily in a Red Sox cap, Lily in lace, everything he could remember about her, until eventually the images took over, and he gave into a wave of ecstasy, a call of her name in an echo of rushing water and his heated seed down his inner thigh. It slid down his leg while he stood catching his breath, water falling into his mouth. It slid down until he reached the cool tiles under his toes, circled in a puddle, and ran away. Lily ran down and away from him. Although he knew, and feared even more, that she would come back soon enough.

Sands didn't want to admit that she had gotten the best of him already, and that her arrival at the airport had thrown him for every mental capacity he still derived. A room away is where she was now, just one room. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Was she ok? Was she still mad from last night? Did it even matter that he asked himself the questions anymore? He'd given that up a long time ago.

After a quick rinse, he reached for the towel on the glass door, hopped out of the shower and began to dry and dress in the clothes Shane had set out for him. He couldn't find the remote for the perfectly unnecessary plasma screen in the bathroom wall, so he just let the government continued chanting at him while he lowered his hands to the counter for his razor she had left him as well. For whatever reason, he had woken up with the urge to shave, and he liked to think it was because he was trying to collect hot Floridian chicks at the hotel, rather than why he really expected it had come to mind. He covered his face with shaving cream, and carefully slid the razor along, never noticing his bleeding mistakes, never caring anyways. Finishing up, he threw on his shirt with the jeans, made his way back out into the room, and played the three digit code for room service over in his head while dialing the phone…_3…5…6_. It rang three times, and eventually the voice of someone at least half his age and beauty answered, and fighting the urge to ask her name, he placed a breakfast order.

* * *

"Apple please….yes." She replied, answering the questions of the room service attendant, Yes, suite number, 168. Top floor…" Again silence as she listened to the woman, then a confirmation and a thank you before she hung up the phone. The View was on the TV, and trying not to get too entirely annoyed with the woman, she fell into the screen of her laptop, aimlessly checking her full inbox of mail and government crap. She'd called Allie a few minutes after she got out of the shower, explained what she could to her, and given the simple instruction to close up shop until the twentieth. It was a bizarre request, but when Lily informed her she would still be paid for off time, Allison couldn't help but to agree even though unaware that Lily was settled in a hotel room opposite her boyfriends. She tried to answer a few emails, but was uninspired to play doctor, and instead started flipping through channels while waiting for her food. There was of course nothing on as always was the case when she wasn't working, and this left her mind to wander slightly, over a few different things, the first her mom's face the night before and her surprise at Lily's decision to chase after Jess and Shane, the second, her brother and for some reason his stupid old wallet that he refused to replace, which then led to Sheldon, a man who she couldn't seem to wrap her mind around for anything.

Here he was, next door, and she was too afraid to even bother him, or acknowledge him again after the wakeup call she'd been gifted. He was this obtuse mystery to her now, as if his being blind made him invisible to the world, made him more secretive, more challenging. It was a challenge she was ready to fight against, a battle she wanted to win, but just didn't know how. One week for eight years was all it had been so far, and even though he sounded the same, and smelled the same, and partly looked the same, he felt different to her, so weak, so distant. He just wasn't Jeff anymore. More than anything she feared it had been the result of his career move, the CIA had taken all they could get out of his skills before rendering him a lost soul to the world and leaving him with his memories to haunt him, alone and scared in the dark forever. If she could only just break through the black somehow, tear down a wall with even a shadow of light for him, she would be relieved some. But to do something like that was going to take time, and patience, and above all else compliance, which Lily knew, wasn't his strong point.

When her mind recoiled from the thoughts on him, she realized she had scanned through almost two hundred channels of cable more than once and never noticed a single show. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, lost on the inside, wrapped up in her robe, but it was long enough to make cause for a knock on the door of the room. Leaping from the bed and pulling her robe tighter, she reached for the handle and opened up to see the young room service boy and a cart of food. It smelled delicious, and when she signed for it, the kid wheeled in the cart and left, never having even bothered to wonder if he'd made a mistake. But within minutes Lily knew, as she rolled the cart to the edge of the bed, and sat down to fork into her _apple pancakes, _she noticed an odd texture to them, but ignored just long enough to bring them to her taste buds. And it certainly wasn't apple. She didn't spit out the food, but winced and continued chewing, thinking of only one thing…_banana on pancakes…who the hell puts banana on pancakes? _Just as she was about to swallow the crude taste, she choked on the food with a second knock, this time at the door leading into the guys' room. It was soft but forceful, and knowing who it was, she jumped up and moved to open it.

There was the stench of bananas on her breath when she caught him leaning against the doorway panel, a plate in his hand, glasses on, and an annoyed expression circling his face around the few dried razor nicks he'd acquired.

"Apples?"

"What?"

"You…" he tried again while exhaling and holding the plate out further to where he could smell his own food on her breath, "You're the apples."

"Oh…and you…you're…_gross_. Bananas? On pancakes?"

"Stop knocking my breakfast and hand it over."

"Hold on…" she walked back into the room to grab his plate and hand it to him as she grabbed her own. He nodded in thanks and turned back around without a word. It shocked her, but what shocked her more was her immediate response, "You too good for my company, Agent Sands?" It worked, as he stopped dead in his tracks, swiveled back with a cocky grin and tapped his thumb on his plate in thought. Lily waited with a smile and a lick of syrup from her own plate, until she saw him nod his head back and respond, "I'm the blind guy, so you get to be transient. My balcony…"

"Its forty degrees outside…" she mocked with a glance out of the sliding glass doors of her own room.

"If you can't handle Florida in January, how the hell are you gonna handle a bullet wound?" And with that, he finished his steps back and walked out onto the balcony from a distance as she watched him. Her eyes darted a few more times to the icy windows in her own room, the mere look of cold from where she stood, and then in true Hanson family fashion, she jumped into gear, sucked it up, and followed him. Outside, it wasn't as cold as she had pictured it to be, and in all ridiculousness it actually felt nice. Sands was already stretched out in one of the rod iron patio chairs, breathing in the coastal wind, and stuffing his face. When he heard her finally come out, barefoot nonetheless, he laughed and jilted her for his own pleasure, "How does a girl from Chatham Bay, freeze her ass off in Florida?"

"I don't know…probably the same way a boy from Elizabethtown gets pissed at a Boston summer."

"Hey now, I distinctly recall telling you never to mention that fact."

"What…ten years ago? Hardly counts…" Sitting down across from him, she sat Indian style, winding her legs together for warmth, and sinking into her own plate. Something about Jeff though preoccupied much of her mind, his hands as they held onto both, table and fork, the veins still in protrusion, green, rough, and desperate to relax beneath the taut skin. His cheeks were already growing red with numbness as she felt her own doing the same, his hair, slightly wet at the curling ends, and the scar on his neck, something she had only just noticed in the right light. It was a battle wound of some sort, a mission, a fight he'd probably won easily but not so withstanding as to leave him clean of blood. Eventually he began to speak again, and she stopped staring to focus on her food.

"You must be the craziest fucking chick to have ever lived…afraid of nothing huh? Old Hanson family tradition, fear nothing?" He was finding her again, and it scared her. Sands knew her all knew well, he understood her mind, because in actuality, theirs had always operated on the same basic level of being. They understood one another; they were each other at one point. "Can't say Tommy Boy isn't proud right now. Christ…he's probably sitting somewhere laughing his ass off."

"Yeah laughing his ass off at his blind partner…going into battle for him." She finally insisted with a sip of orange juice.

"No, at his 'cop shrink' sister, running off to Florida with his _blind partner_, to get revenge…that's the joke here."

"Whatever…" She finished, taking another mouthful of pancakes and looking out over the distant, foggy bay of Tampa. After a few harsh gusts in her eyes, she looked back towards the room instead, doors open to take in the view of two messy beds, piles of guys clothing, and from the corner of her eye, and settled at the corner of the couch near the sliding doors, a guitar. When she fell further into focus, she couldn't deny what it really was, the black sheen, worn from ages of playing, but still perfectly well off for any Fender musician. One such a musician, licking his fingers of syrup, downing a full glass of orange juice, and hardly even realizing what she was seeing. Smiling, she interrupted with cough that disturbed him, and finally asked, "Does he still play well?"

"What?" Sands replied with a confused brow as he sucked on the rind of an orange.

"Hank…I can't believe you still have him."

"Oh…uh, yeah." The answer was blank, but it didn't stop her from pushing back the chair and walking over to where it was settled against the couch, throwing it over her shoulder as she fell into the cushions. For whatever strange reason, Sands found himself immediately on edge by her interest with the guitar, more than likely because of the history it had shared not only in his own childhood, but between the two of them. It was the guitar that had strung out more love songs for her than he could even recall writing or covering. The same six strings that had played minutes before he'd gotten down on one knee at Lockeman's Pier. The same light strum that she had once played beneath his own fingertips, as he taught her how to be one with the music. He pushed back from the chair quickly, feeling his way around the table and back inside to the room, following the sound of the dying strings, and coming to the couch finally. There was no hesitation when he reached down to find the handle of the guitar under her grasp and tear it away from her with a lasting strum.

"Hey, what the hell!?"

Matching her shout with a toss of the guitar onto the nearest bed he could feel, he turned back around with a glaring brow, "Don't play it."

"Why not…?"

"Because." It was the only response he could come up with, at the expense of another three seconds, when he mind fell backwards in time, and his body became motionless before her.

* * *

**Call from Boston to the Cape**

_August 12__th__, 1994_ – 3:20 am

"_What'ya wanna hear?" _

"_Just play me anything…I'm tired." _

"_No way, you pick." At the soft determination in his voice, Lily sat back up in bed to focus her thoughts more clearly on picking out a song. Jeff was back at school for the week, an hour away, and way too many feet and arms distance to count. And even though it would be another two weeks until she was in Boston, she needed him now, in the middle of the night, for at least another twenty minutes, and she knew she shouldn't take it for granted. When he was away during the weeks, he would call around midnight or whenever he finished training, and they would talk for hours after, sometimes till the sun came up and they both were getting dressed for class. She had learned more about him through their phone conversations over the years than she would have liked to admit, and enjoyed them far too much for what they actually were; loneliness. _

"_I don't know…just anything good…"_

"_You drive me nuts you know that?" _

"_Mmm…" she laughed with a smile, laying back down into the sheets, knowing he would eventually choose for her tired mind, "But you love me anyway."_

"_I have no choice…I screw up now, I get shot in my sleep by Brother Hanson."_

"_He's my watchdog," she cooed, nestling her head against the pillow further as she heard him slowly tuning up his strings at a distance. Trying to picture him in her mind was easy at this point, he was more or less half naked, his skinny legs hanging down the edge of his bed, hair a mess, his grandfather's dog tag chain dangling at his bare chest, and a guitar settled between his rippled stomach and the place she'd come to know all too well. It was a vision that had left other women in a cloud of anticipated delight on occasion, but for Lily, it was greeted with a content smirk. The lust was gone now, it was only love. _

"_Alright, I think I got one."_

"_Well good…" she yawned finally, "Play it Sparky."_

_And so he did, as the strings wound themselves routinely between his fingers, strokes and dabs of raw emotion and pleasure filtering out over the instrument. It was and had always been his, a good thirteen years and six guitars later. He never got rid of Hank, named for by his sister's unoriginality, and lasting still to that moment. Feeling the harmony building from the guttural moan of the beast, he passed it through on a journey to the lowest hook of Cape Cod, a never-ending tradition. Lily eventually got the wind of the tune he had struck up in thin air, something sweet and low, something he rarely played. _

"_**Yeah…I'll tell you somethin'…I think you'll understand…"**_

_This was the Sheldon the world would never know, and she knew this even then. There was certain secrecy about his ways, mistrust, a lack of confidence if you will, to share it, to express it. But with Lily, there was really no choice. _

"_**When I'll…say that something…I wanna hold your hand…."**_

_While he sang to her, lightly, almost as if he were drifting into sleep with the words, she began to picture his hands behind closed eyes. He had the longest fingers, ones that could reach for the stars if he tried, guitarist's fingers, lover's fingers. They could be soft or they could be haggard, but always one or the other, never halfway done. And it was when he held her hand, the weekends, holidays, anytime he skipped class to drive down the coast and break her out of school, when he held her hand on those days, she knew there was a reason Tommy had met Jeff. There was a reason that he had come into her life just as hers was getting better, and his, falling apart. _

"_**Oh please, say to me…you'll let me be your man. And please, say to me…you'll let me hold your hand…"**_

_The song continued on for another minute or so, falling darkly, soundly into rest as both of them realized the extent of their tired eyes. But it was the dreams Lily concocted every night that kept her from losing her mind while the highway separated them. And for Jeff, it was the sound of her breathing when he woke up the next morning, the phone still to his ear and hers. _

* * *

_**Reference:** I Wanna Hold Your Hand by **The Beatles**_


	12. The Man Who Bought The World

**The Man Who Bought the World**

Hard Rock Hotel – _5:00 PM_

* * *

They'd been gone all day on the case, Shane and the guys, taking photos of Tuzla's homes and businesses, even the Bucs Stadium for good measure. They spent every moment in espionage, checking out the services of the restaurants, the hotel he owned, and even the management at his estate, while planting taps and wires of a dozen different sizes and purposes. Exhausted and with more information than they had expected, the three rode the elevator back up to the top floor, ready for a good nap or two before they had to go back out.

Following Carter and Andy into their room, she found Jeff outside on the balcony playing his guitar. He heard them come in but ignored it, only pounding into the instrument and biting his chapped lips against the cold air. When Shane came out and sat next to him, she noticed how hard his face looked, something had happened.

"Catch him?"

"Would I be here if I had?"

"Good point. Learn anything then?" As he stopped playing and sat the guitar down on the table, he peered over in her direction, his glasses falling down his nose a ways to reveal the stitches under his eyebrows.

"Yeah." She replied easily, "Learned that we're gonna need a really good mole for this one."

"Well hell, I could have told you that back in D.C." He mocked, standing up with an empty glass and going back inside the room where it was warmer. He heard Carter and Andy when they said hi from opposite sides of the room, and with a short wave of his hand, sat down on the edge of the bed feeling for the remote. Catching it before it fell to the floor, Shane handed it to him, and watched as he scanned channels by sound.

"He's got these places locked up like the fucking White House, one of us is going to have to get in, Jeff."

"I doubt Tuzla's gonna go for Carter or Fruit Loop…"

"Obviously not."

"Which leaves you?" His response was short, bland, as if only stated by routine. Sands knew his sister wasn't afraid to go in alone on anything, she rather preffered it most times, but there was the risk of Jimmy Tuzla's memory, facial memory.

"Yeah…me, or Li--"

"Don't even think about it." He stammered with a toss of remote back to the bed again as he rose. It was as if he had known it was coming, the proposition of such a thing, an undercover doctor. Even though it wasn't his case to run, he certainly wasn't about to let someone like Lily take the weight on her weak shoulders, he knew they'd all be killed. But it was also with great conviction that Shane fought back against it with good reason.

"She said she wants to help, and what if Jimmy recognizes me? All she's gotta do is meet him and--"

"No!" With a growl, he threw his glass across the dresser of the room, causing both Andy and Shane to jump, more so with annoyance. "She's not a part of this, I don't care what the fuck she _wants_…she'll kill herself and then us, Shane. No fucking way."

"It's just one night, she'll be fine and…wait--" Stopping as she made her way across to the other doorway between the two rooms, she looked around inside to see it empty, "Where the hell is she?"

Sands remained silent as he shuffled around with the bottle of pills Lily had given him on the plane. Downing two pills with rum, and not caring about the effects, he heard Shane start up again, "Jeff…what did you do?"

* * *

**Earlier in the day:**

_Their voices had raised an octave over each imperative minute passing, reverberating with words that were meant to have been shared eight long years ago, things that were both good and harmful to them. Sands denied a number of things while Lily did the same, and when he accepted he'd been wrong, she convinced him of the double standard of his wrong-doing. Likewise of him to her. And it continued for half an hour or more, back and forth, until they had completely forgotten why they had even begun fighting. This, was their trademark, the forgetting of problems once the yelling got out of control and their bodies were usually so heated that all they needed was to feel one another again. It was as if the years had never passed, as if they were back in college, on the streets of Boston arguing over where to eat, or a girl that she had seen hanging onto Jeff's shoulder, or even what reason she had for not calling him the night before. They fought over the imperative nothing, the things they knew weren't true deep down, but felt every need to remind themselves of it with words, shouting, public displays of anger until they found one another's lips as the stronghold. _

"_You think you know everything don't you? Always so smart…always with the answers…"_

"_No, that's your job now…__**Doctor Hanson**__."_

"_God, why does it bother you so damn much that I wanted to be doctor?"_

"_It doesn't."_

"_Yeah right, I'm not stupid."_

"_Look…" he grabbed her by the shoulders and held her down away from his face while he spat at her, "I don't give a shit if you jump off the balcony…it's not my problem anymore, as you've made so very clear." And with a shove, he took off again._

"_Could have fooled me." Wandering behind him for fear that he would run into something, she watched as he fumbled with the bottle of pills she'd given him, taking three of them with a near empty beer, and heading into the bathroom. He didn't bother closing the door that he couldn't see anyway, only walked in and held onto the counter for emphasis of pain. "Are you okay?" Lily finally asked him, laying a hand on his shoulder when he pushed her away._

"_I am fine…how many fucking times do I have to say it?!" Falling out of the doorway, she watched his glasses drop from his face onto the tile floor, and three lone pills sling back without the assistance of liquid as he gulped them down. She couldn't bear to believe what her eyes were showing her anymore, because that would be admitting she had been even more wrong about him than she had thought. Jeff wasn't tired, or overworked, or drained of energy from his dilemma, he was gone, completely. His knuckles were red with the fierceness of grasping the countertop, sweat breaking out at the chest of his t-shirt, and his jaw clenched down with a grind as he came towards where he heard her breathing again. _

"_Jeff…" she tried, holding her hands out for him, but he refused them still and grunted, "Go away Lily. Go home to your mother."_

"_No."_

_Hearing the conclusion in her tone, he waited, and wondered at her voice until he felt the cool metal of his sunglasses tuck in behind his ears and realized she had saved them from being crushed beneath his feet._

"_I'm not going anywhere."_

_Coming in as closely as he could manage, his hands holding him up in the doorway higher above her mouth, he felt her breath on his chin, warm, strong, Lily. He knew she was mad at more than just his will to cooperate with her medical skills, and he also knew she was working on pushing her way back into his heart, he could feel that, but was far from ever being ready. Taking a stroke or two of thought before speaking, he lowered himself into her as she stepped back with a wince and twisted brow of confusion. _

"_Unless you're staying to give someone here a well deserved __**fuck**__…you had better just move along, little girl." _

_Even before she could explain the dropping of her jaw, she felt her hand coil until it landed with a sting against his cheek, a burn following as his head fell away from in front of her and his hand replaced where hers had left the mark. _

"_You son of a bitch…I-I…" she stuttered, tears welling from the inner corners of her eyes while she tried to move back away from him. "I…I can't believe I ever loved you." And at that, she was gone without another word, only a few patters of feet across carpet, a slam of a door, and a pounding in his head as the entire world spun through blackness without him. _

* * *

"Nothing."

"Yeah right…" Shane nodded without reassurance, and snatched the bottle from his hand, "How many of these have you taken?"

"Oh Jesus, don't you start too!" Ripping back the pills, he felt his way around her at the dresser until he could make it to the bed and lay down. Convinced that he had screwed things up royally with Lily already, Shane decided to go find her, since her things were still in the room next door. Either she had stayed in the hotel, or gone out into the town, but she certainly hadn't left for home yet. Calling out to the other guys before leaving, she grabbed her jacket just in case, and Jeff's wallet off the dresser before taking off down the hallway again.

"Pain in the ass…" she mumbled under her breath, as a few elder women walked by with shocked expressions. With a smile, she hopped inside of the elevator, pushed the lobby button which was a good twenty floor drop, and waited alone with the music. "At least they don't play shit here," she hummed along to the classic beat for a minute or so, until the metal doors opened to the sound of the lobby's entertainment, slot machines, the nearby bars, and people everywhere. She hadn't even begun to think about where Lily had run off to, but imagined it to be one of the places that Shane herself would have gone to get away from Sheldon, either for a strong drink or to waste money, or hell maybe even both.

Starting in the casino, she made her way around the floor slowly, sizing up every delicate brunette she saw. There were hundreds of people in the room, dropping their life savings into machines, shouting, cussing, kicking the entrapments until hauled away. The air smelled like vodka and cheap cologne, and when she finally made it to the last row of slots, she began to wonder if Lily hadn't just skipped town after all, not caring enough to bring her lingerie and shoes along with her. But as she turned around to head back towards the near empty bar, she heard a sound so distinct, so familiar, that he quit her heels in their own track of carpeting. It was a laugh, another and another until Shane found her way to the hotel lobby and saw Lily, perched high in a stool beside a mysterious man. Trying not to laugh herself, Shane walked up the steps into the bar and made her way around to the back of Lily's swiveling chair with a wide grin.

"Doctor Hanson…alcohol is bad for you." Shane said laughing as she finally saw the man's face, a rugged but handsome man, with rich eyes and soft hair.

"Oh, Shane hey!"

"Hi."

"Luke, this is who I was telling you about, my old friend Shane."

"Shane, hello." He smiled with an outstretched hand, calm but strong she noticed as he shook her hand and replied.

"Well, I should be going Lily, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Shane. I'll let you ladies enjoy your evening, and I've got your number."

"Great, thanks Luke." Lily shook his hand as he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek softly, a smile, a tip on the bar, and a wink to Shane as he stepped away from the bar as if only a ghost. Both women laughed as they watched him walk through the hotel lobby, push his shades over his eyes, scratch his rustic chin a bit, and exit the hotel. When he was officially gone, Shane turned to her as she sipped at the last of the man's Bacardi, and giggled.

"So…Luke. You acquire a knack for picking up random guys in bars since the last time I saw you?"

"I wish." She laughed and finished her wine, " We were just talking."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's all he was thinking about...was your _conversation…"_

"Hey, I resent that," she screeched with a slap on Shane's shoulder. "I happen to have _two_ very nice _conversations_…" roaring with chuckles, the two ordered another set of drinks and fell into the discussion Shane had come downstairs for, the one she knew was needed before she asked Lily for her help.

"I hear you had a nice _'conversation'_ upstairs earlier as well?"

"Oh yeah that…"

"Oh yeah that? I think it was a little bit more than just _that_…"

Lily huffed silently as she spun her drink on the counter, trying to avoid the topic at all costs, but knowing that it was far from possible.

"Your brother hates me."

"No…" Shane sighed, "He doesn't. I think he's just not sure what to make of you yet."

"What, like I'm a stranger?"

"You are Lily. A lot's happened the last eight years."

"Yeah…" She agreed with a cough and shuffle in her seat. They both pondered life in that moment, the taking and renewing of it, the loss and gain, the joy and pain of a near decade between relationships. Yes, they knew one another, as did she and Jeff, but they knew what once was, not what had become. In eight years, Lily had become a doctor, Shane and Sheldon had not only joined the CIA, but signed their lives away slowly, and even given one's eyesight and stability now. What Lily didn't know, was that Jeff had dated more than he could ever possibly keep track of, bedded, paid, induced sex from a plethora of women as she had always feared he one day would. Shane, had been through roughly indecent relationships with men, ones that gave her brother no other choice but to leave them wounded and unconscious in hospitals. And yet Lily didn't know this either. She didn't know that Shane had graduated with a minor in English Literature, or that Jeff had sailed to Bermuda with his dad's yacht and crashed it. She didn't know that together the Sands' team had killed a total of 62 people, in a matter of only six years. Lily just hadn't known, and now, was kicking herself for having run out of the room on Jeff, and not forced him to hear her out.

"I didn't mean to yell at him, he just…he won't listen to me. Ever."

"I know, he's been like that for a long time, even worse now."

"He has good reason I suppose, I see men and women like him all the time, who just really hate life.

The pain, it's more than they want to deal with. I guess I was just hoping he'd let me in..."

"You think he's in a lot of pain?"

"Yeah I do."

"But he's been taking all kinds of pills…?"

"Not that kind of pain Shane," Lily replied, looking up with a hand gestured to Shane's right temple, where she tapped lightly with a sigh. "Pain here." Nodding, Shane took another sip of her drink and tried to contemplate it, the fact that she had always known Jeff was suffering somewhere, in his head, his heart, since forever it seemed. Yet now, it took on another form, because now, he was practically trapped inside of himself, in his mind, spending every minute in complete darkness. "I just wish he would let me help him, I know I can. But…he'll never trust me with his emotions again."

"I don't think that's true, he needs you Lily. More than he knows probably."

"But he didn't before?"

"Because you didn't need _him_." This was the settling ground, and Lily took it for all it was worth, Shane had finally laid it out for her to see. Jeff wasn't pushing her away because he didn't want her around or to be with her, he was doing it to save her the trouble of having to fight for the past, of having to fight her heart for him. But what neither him nor Shane knew, was that eight years had done quite a number on her heart, and with the lessons gained in secondary relationships, she learned from her mistake with Jeff and also learned that the only mistake she really ever made, was walking away from Tommy's grave without him.

Trying to break the tension, Shane decided that it would now or never that she would get Lily into the case, and get her to clear her head of the trouble with Sheldon by helping out.

"The reason I came down here to find you, was because I need your help too."

"With what?"

"Well…" she began, tapping her fingers on the bar nervously with a smirk, "We've got a job for you."

* * *


	13. Killer Queen

**Killer Queen**

* * *

"What the hell do you think they're doing in there?"

"I don't know…chicks are always anal about how they look." Carter replied to Andy's questioning as they hung by the door, trying to listen in, but only catching a few laughs between blaring music and water running. Jeff lounged on the couch, uninterested and rather disgusted by the situation at hand. He'd told Shane no, and as usual, she'd done the opposite.

"Jack's gonna kill us for this." Andy finally concluded, coaxing a devilish chuckle from Sands as they both turned to remind themselves he was there. "I'm serious, we're all fucked if he finds out about her going in there."

"Shane says it's our best bet." Again, Sands laughed at Carter's input as well.

"A couple of pussy's. You let Shane take charge…she's half your height and weight."

"She's Shane though…and she's your sister." Andy returned to Jeff, almost frightened by his statement.

* * *

From the opposing room, neither of the young women was within earshot of the conversation over them, and so only focused on the task at hand. Lily was now part of the mission as she so had hoped, and in such an accomplishment, she'd been assigned the first undercover gig. The two of them were planning a return to Jimmy's club that night, in order for Shane to have the inside eye of what was really go on, which is where Lily came in. Her job was to get as close to Tuzla's side as she could manage, whether it be the main man or not, as long as it was close enough to get within the circle of information. A fashion of whoring to some, but a task, a duty to the CIA. She'd be wired as Shane had mentioned, with the help of the guys from the hotel, inside of her ear.

As she sat on the bed with Shane, painting her nails red, they went over the details of everything she was supposed to do, and even some details she didn't quite care for. But she knew it was all necessary. She had wanted in on the case, and now she'd be first in line to the information, and to the takedown.

"So you just want to basically get into the club and keep your eyes open for anything _odd_. Okay?"

"Yeah. And the guys will be in my head?"

Laughing Shane nodded and presented the wireless earpiece to her, "Yep, you'll hear them through here, and it hides in your hair easy so no one will know."

"Can I talk to them?"

"Sure, but just be careful when you do. They'll be here at the hotel, and I'll be in the car outside the bar if you need me."

"Is there going to be some code to leave?"

"As soon as you find what we need, we'll be there to help you out." Lily looked to her nervously and only shook her head in understanding. A few minutes later, Shane encouraged her to hurry up and get dressed as she left to go back into the guys' room. Standing up from the bed, she moved into the bathroom to check her makeup and hair one last time, it held just the right about of flare, of seduction, and she felt like the quite the jezebel. This had never been Lily's taste for life or dress really, she was relaxed, sexy but simple in mindset. But even she had to admit while catching herself in the mirror, that she could be both and was tonight, no matter what her heart told her. She had to believe this was all for Tommy, for his memory, for everything that had been done to him and her family. She was fighting with fire for him.

* * *

"You sure she can handle it?"

"Yes Danny, she's fine. Lily's tougher than you think."

"Yeah, but Shane these are fucking mob bosses, _the_ mafia of Florida. These aren't petty Boston criminals."

"Just trust me, her head's strong. She can do this." They all fell silent as Sands laughed from behind on the couch and rolled his head back. Shane was already annoyed with him after how he'd been acting with Lily there, and now for him to completely disregarding her choices in the case she'd been assigned, bothered her more than anything. He never had given her the easy way out to prove herself to him, and even now, all these years later, he treated her like the little sister and not the CIA agent she was.

"What the hell is your problem?"

"Nothing…" he sighed, pushing himself up from the couch. As she watched him circle it with his hands, it was in her head not to mention the boot a good five feet away, and because she didn't, he tripped over it roughly. "Fuck!" He shouted, flying forward to the glass door of the balcony, and then abusing the shoe as he kicked it away. Shane followed him, hands on her hip and a creased brow of annoyance.

"What's your issue with Lily?"

"Oh give me a break Shane…"

"I don't know what you said to her earlier, but you better cut the shit."

"Or what?"

"Or I'm making a collect call to Washington." Her answer was conclusive, but hardly enough to tempt him or place fear in him. Jack Morrison and Dane Levy owed Sands, and they all knew it. Calling them would do nothing but disturb the evident 'peace' of the case. Shane was in control it seemed, and there was really nothing he could do but sit back and _listen_ to what she'd set up. He would have to deal with the fact that he wasn't running the show anymore, and probably never would again. And he especially had to live with the idea of Lily being around for the next two weeks, involved in the case, and risking her life for revenge that he himself wanted just as badly. He had to accept it all.

"I need your help tonight, Lily needs you to help her." He didn't say anything, only turned to follow Shane's request, the air outside growing colder with her words. "Look, I don't care how you really feel about her Jeff, you can hate her, but Carter and Andy can't help her like you can, you know that."

Nearly falling into response, his lips parched and glasses falling down against his nose, they're concentration was broken suddenly by the sound of a door opening from inside, and a gasp.

"Whoa…" at Carter's expression, Shane ran back inside to see Lily standing at the doorway, dressed, beautified and more than ready. Her dark hair was flowing with spiraling curls, her smoky eyes enough to drive even the most hardened criminal insane, and her black cocktail dress dangled to her knees, with pink stilettos to tie everything in. It was a flawless impression of Florida nightlife, and yet it actually suited Lily for some reason. Shane laughed out loud for her to turn around while the guys' jaws dropped even further, the dress completely backless, and dropping to a hollowed curve at her lower back. Half of the task was done.

"You look so great."

"Thanks," she replied meekly with a smile, noticing Sands come inside from the balcony between their shoulders. It was the first she had seen of him since their fight earlier in day, and he acted as though hearing her voice did nothing, standing near the closest bedpost for support.

"Let's just get you wired up." Carter came to her with a few smile, white wires, the earpiece that Shane had originally shown her, and a camera no larger than her fingernail that he attached to the inseam of her dress at the chest. She tried not to move while they were putting everything into place, and only focused on Jeff, standing idly, listening in on each word spoken but hardly paying any attention to them. After a few minutes she saw him shuffle around with a pre-rolled cigarette from his back pocket, lick at it a few times and light it to smoke. It didn't bother her much, it never really had, in all truth she'd tried desperately not to find the act entirely sexy.

"Shane told you everything about the ear bud?"

"Oh…" she shook her head away from Sands and looked up to Carter, "Y-yeah, she did. You guys can talk to me."

"Yeah, and likewise, you can talk to us if you need any help. The camera's simple too, just so we can see what you see."

"Ok."

While she continued to ask questions of Shane and Carter, Andy made his way over to Sands to ask for a cigarette, and when first turned down by the older officer, he was surprised by his second response. "I tell you what Loop…if you can tell me what she looks like, I'll give you a smoke."

Andy laughed and looked over to Lily again, his head shaking with a goofy grin before he whispered. "Well, she's uh wearing a black dress."

"How short?"

"Short enough for you," Sands laughed as Andy tilted his head to size her up better as he gave the description. "Her hairs down, curls."

"How long is her hair?"

"Uh…past her shoulders."

"Brown still?"

"Dark. And her makeup is dark too, but real sexy."

Jeff smiled, halfway between devilish and commemorative, as the other agent went on by his side biting down on his hand as he talked. "The dress man…if you could see this dress."

"Good huh?"

"Fuck yeah. The back's missing…the front's missing…" Stopping for a moment, Sands tilted his own head in thought, bit down on his lower lip, and took a long drag from his cigarette thereafter. The images his mind was conjuring up alone, were enough to send him over the edge in ways he hardly needed at that moment. So he smoked, and gulped, trying to ignore it while Andy concluded. "She's beautiful man, just…you know."

"Yeah. I did." He replied quietly with a brown cigarette dangling between his free middle and index fingers towards Andy. "Thanks rookie."

"Sure, Jeff."

Confident with all of the answers Lily had received, she took her purse back from Shane and nodded in preparation to leave. "Let's do this."

"Alright," Shane said, grabbing her own jacket and walking towards the door with the other guys asking her questions about the set up and plan. Lily stood for a moment only a few feet away from Sheldon, trying to catch her bearings before stepping out. But it was when she turned to leave behind Shane, that she heard the voice she'd been waiting for, "Hanson?" Dead in what little tracking she'd gained, her pink heels spun off in his direction at the bed, looking up to see his brow twitch as he puffed harder on the cigarette, and then she walked towards him.

Pausing as she came to him, she noticed his hand move to the pocket of his jeans and pull out a small black wrapper of something. "Give me your hand…" he said, holding it gently as he placed the package into her palm and closed his hand around it.

"What is it?"

"Someone might try to get you to…you know…" gesturing with his head seductively, she giggled and then looked on serious, "…just slip these into his drink."

"What will they do?"

"I won't ruin the surprise. But…they'll work." With a smile she tucked them into her purse for safe keeping and then paused once more to look at him, the somber attitude he had, almost as if remorse had come over him in the last few hours. She wanted to say so many things to him, but settled for her head's interpretation. "Jeff I'm sorry about earlier, I just--"

"Ah. Don't." He interrupted, with a hand fixed out in front of him.

"What?"

"Always go into a case with a clear head."

"Oh…oh ok yeah." She replied with a furious nod of acceptance while turning away from him for the door, but he caught her upper arm gently and pulled her back only slightly to see him. "Be careful Killer. And if you need me…I'll be right up here." Moving his hand up softly to where he felt her cheek, hair and ear, he tapped with his index finger and smirked. After saying her thanks, she grinned and walked away from him to where Shane was waiting at the door. And Jeff, even without his eyesight, could feel her smile.

* * *

**Halloween Night – Police Academy Party**

_Boston, MA. 1994_

_They'd had an argument, they always were. Sands and Lily constantly felt the need to attempt defying the other's wit, intelligence, and usually it was her that prevailed in the sport. Everything had been fine at Tom and his apartment, on the car ride over to Finn's Bar for the party, and even during the first twenty minutes or so. Dressed in perfect unison as a pirate and his wench, they had danced, conversed, drank and kissed madly. Jeff loved walking into room's with Lily, the looks he received, the acknowledgement that she was his; it felt too good not to be proud of it. She wasn't his trophy, but she certainly was his better half, and every one of their friends knew this, especially Tommy. _

_But on this night for some reason, there had been tension from previous days, words left unsaid and thoughts incomplete, and it was when he caught her talking with one of the Freshman trainees near the dance floor, that he lost it. Sands had Irish blood rooted deep within his veins, the only thing he ever appreciated receiving from his father, and at the sight of another man touching Lily's arm, he had advanced. A warning to the kid and a tug of her wrist back towards the bar solved the problem momentarily, until she decided to take over with Shane to the bathroom. Or at least that's what she told him. _

_Heated and disturbed by the way he acted, the jealousy that burned his cheeks, she had stormed off with Shane, a few minutes of passing argument and rage in the bathroom, and eventually she was alone to her own mind. Which unfortunately, didn't last as long as she had hoped for. After a few minutes of running cool water over her face and pressing her cheeks to the tiles of the wall, she was interrupted by Greg, the guy Jeff had caught her talking with in the bar only a few minutes before. He looked wearied, drunk, and as he eased his way across the open floor to where she was, his cowboy hat tilted down against his left eye, he smirked in a way that left her intimidated. She tried to move around him, but it was no use. Her legs had grown to weak from the drinks to have any reflex, and she only stood against the wall, watching him come to her as he covered her lips with his, biting down. _

_Outside in the bar, Jeff grew confused when he spotted Shane back out on the dance floor, running around wild with Tommy and his friends. Lily wasn't with her, and when his eyes darted across the space before him, there were also no visible cowboys. Dropping his beer to the counter and pushing through the crowd of costumes and other worldly beings, he grabbed Shane's hand away and pulled her back, "Hey, where's Lily?"_

"_Geez…I don't know."_

"_Shane!"_

"_She's in the bathroom I think…why…?" his head turned quickly in the direction of the shallow hallway, he let go of his sister's hand, and trudged the space to the ladies' room. If there was one thing Jeff had been prized for thus far in the Academy, and for that matter with the Boston P.D. it was his inept sense of danger, the ability to know something was wrong even before it became apparent to the human eye or ear. He was their seeing eye dog in a way, and this night was no different. As he made it down the hallway there were girls crowded everywhere, screaming about the bathroom being locked, a few of them kicking it roughly with heels. With the loud music and their screeching, he couldn't hear anything else past the door, "Move!" he shouted, pushing a few of them out of the way and shaking the handle violently. But when nothing happened, he instead chose to brush the women down the hall further, and make a darting kick from the opposite wall, pounding against the wood of the door with the heel of his pirate boots. The girls laughed at him, not realizing exactly what he had, and after a few kicks, the door fell inward and so did he. _

_He saw Lily's legs just short of her high skirt, one being held by the thick fingers of another guy, the cowboy, as he fondled over every inch of her body, uninvited from the fearful yelp she let out. "J-Jeff!" _

_Catching his balance, he stepped in with his hand grasping Greg's arm and pulling him away from the wall where he had her pinned. Jeff used every knuckle in his fist to break his jaw twice, full blows, more screams from the hallway and from Lily as he fell to the tile at both their feet. He was unconscious by the time Sheldon had managed to lift Lily up and carry her out gently in his arms, where spectators viewed him as nothing short of a hero, and friends of Greg's darted the premises. Lily was beautiful, and it was on that night that he had truly seen what kind of damage could be done when he wasn't around, when his jealousy led her to loneliness, and her solidarity could lead to other men taking advantage. Even though the pain had been minimal and the cowboy had barely managed to make it past first base with a head full of liquor, Jeff worried that the next time, she wouldn't be so lucky. It was his job to protect her, he'd promised Tommy and her mom that he would, no matter what. And he would. _

* * *

**Ybor City - Raw Lounge**

_10:28_

"Can you guys hear me?"

No answer. They were preoccupied, all three of them. Danny and Andy were fighting over a bag of cheetos and beer, and Sands was sitting at the longer end of the hotel couch, cigarette dipping from his lip, and his headphones slowly falling down off his ears as he drifted to sleep.

"Guys!" she shouted under harsh breath, tapping at the bud at the back of her ear and tugging down at the wrinkles in her dress as she stood outside of the club. They immediately jerked themselves to the TV to see the view of a darkened street where she was, the glow of neon lights, and tall, leggy blondes. "Can you hear me?" She repeated once more, growing annoyed.

"Yeah, hey Lily we're here." Danny answered finally, sipping at a beer with fixated eyes and jaw, "Damn. I think I need to come."

"Ew, what?"

"Sorry, come _down there_…wish I was there with those blondes…"

Andy laughed crazily, tugging back the chips and then leaning over to nudge Sands awake.

"Hey man, she's there." Coming to the cruel lighting of the TV, pounding in past the skin of his covered eyes, Jeff cracked his neck from the quick rest, and then reached out for a beer. Fumbling, it was Andy who popped the top and handed one to him, reminding him to also replace his headphones to hear what she was saying at a distance. Danny continued egging her on as she walked carefully to the line outside of the club.

"I feel like I'm riding on a cloud…of _breast-age_." Sands looked up with a wince of the beer cutting off his breathing, and scrunched his nose at Danny with annoyance and then threw his boot at his head. "Ow, fuck man!"

"Leave her alone you cunt, she needs to stay focused." Stopping dead in her tracks, a smiling wiping across her face, Lily heard his voice, defending and protecting her just as Shane had convinced her he would. Jeff was there, with her, and as he continued to talk into the mic on his headset, she realized he was speaking directly to her.

"…gotta flip the bouncer that little gold card Shane gave you, ok?"

Coming back to reality, she darted a gaze at the bouncer, then whispered away from the forming crowd to reply, "What…say that again."

"Jesus…ok look, just keep walking towards the line, see that big thing full of people right in front of you. There is one there isn't there?" Although Sands couldn't, Danny and Andy could see everything she could, from the delightful level of the one place they all secretly wished to be. Lily though, was in no mood to be patronized.

"I can see it smartass, thanks. And I just show him the gold card?"

"Yeah, that will get you in quicker."

"This isn't Disney World, this is a club."

"Just trust me."

"Fine." Huffing and taking a dip back out of the crowded line she'd arrived at, her pink stilettos cracked at every step, the sensual molten honey of skin noticed by every male patron as she walked past them, and her dress, which left only one thing up to the imagination, gave her every reason to get in with or without the gold card. But, she did as she was told and pranced in front of the two large, black men at the doorway, flashing a winning smile and tucking her breasts out further as Shane had recommended.

"Back of the line, miss."

"Oh…" she winked once with a pout, drawing the card out from her braless dress, eyes darting up to each of them. "…I was told this would get me in…_quicker._"

From the inside of her head, she could hear the guys a mile away at the hotel, laughing, grunting, choking and cheering. Danny spoke with a desperate howl, "Christ man…if one of those fuckers in there doesn't lay her tonight…" trying not to laugh, she held her cool as the two burly bouncers looked her up and down with pleasing smiles, and then drew back the red velvet rope.

"Have fun little girl."

"Thanks." Her hand ran across the closest bouncer's shoulder, a look of jealousy from the second, and then the angry voices of the mob outside, playing out through the speakers as the guys continued to root her on from her ear.

Sands who was mostly quiet, only whispered once past the noise, the very last thing she would hear clearly before the music hit her ears, "Good job, kid." _Kid…kid…there it was again. Killing her softly. She hated how desperate she was to forget all that had happened, and make it up to him. She hated how her medical skills were both the furthest and closest thing on her mind with him. She hated how far they had drifted and how little he or she could do about it now. Kid, she didn't hate it anymore. _

Inside, the atmosphere immediately changed. Not that Lily had never been to a club before, in fact, she was a regular at most of the ones in Boston and DC on the weekends, with friends, guys, all sorts of people. But this, a Florida nightclub, was completely different. Everyone was blonde, or had great bodies, tans, smiles, everyone drank martinis instead of beer, and they all looked at her as though she were an outsider, or simply, a brunette. That of course though, was only the women inside. The men though, took to her on an entirely opposite and complimentary level. She was offered drinks almost as soon as she stepped inside, one man with hands like a tiger across her shadowed and open back and another with no shirt on, ready and willing to take her in the bathroom of the club. She laughed out of not knowing what else to do, and continued on until she could find the bar and order a drink.

The music was fun, it was alive, so wanton and deliberately sexual it almost hurt not to laugh at it and the people dancing to it. Approaching the bar, she caught the first tending server she could, and yelled over the noise, "Mojito, please."

"Mojito, you got it."

"Mojito…this girl, man. Fuck Harvard." Danny chuckled, sipping at another drink and leaning over to get a better of view of the room. Andy was involved in trying to stake out anyone who looked as if they might be of interest to the case, while Jeff sat even quieter, caught up in only the sound of women around her, the bartender dropping her drink to the wood, loud music, Justin Timberlake based on the pitch and familiar lyrics, and then, her voice, but this time speaking to him directly again. He perked up, focused in on the words and tried not to smile.

"Jeff, did Shane say anything about there being some kind of private suite in here…for you know, like big spenders…" her voice crackling in with the loud noise but he could hear her well enough and responded with what his sister had explained to him from the blueprints she snatched of the club. "It's near the bathroom, she said there's some sort of a VIP marking at the east wall, I think. But you'll never get in without--"

He was cut off immediately by the sound of another man, not Danny and not Fruit Loop; this was a man at the club, speaking to her, taking her attention away. His voice sounded vaguely familiar, although Jeff tried not to focus too hard on the hue, only the words. All three of them were directly focused in.

"_So Miss Mojito…you here by yourself?" Hesitant by the actual fact of the three gorgeous men inside of her head, Lily smiled and replied innocently. "Y-yes." The man in front of her was not just a man to be sure, but an entirely other world. He was an athlete, one she knew, a big spender, just what she needed as leverage. His eyes were ruling over her body as he slid in closer, his beer touching the warm skin her forearm, making her body tingle. _

"_I saw you from across the room, wanted to come over and introduce myself."_ The guys, near to being on the floor just by what was playing out before them, choked on beer, wanted to scream from nervous tension, and then clawed back when Jeff asked them what was going on, who the fuck it was, the man he couldn't see.

They had no response; they could only let it play out to his ears as it panned across their vision in humor, in unbelievable stature and multitude.

"_Oh…well, I know w-who you are." She was stuttering, but then again, she had every right and reason in this case. Her eyes fluttered up to look into his, the dark streams of hair falling down into his eyes, the same face she'd seen plastered from magazine to commercial, all over the TV on Sunday and Monday nights alike, Tampa Bay's offensive weapon. Her knees had never been so weak before, except maybe, the first time she saw Jeff. This though, was different. _

"_It's a pleasure to meet you."_

"_Likewise." He grinned widely, as he ducked in to her ear closer. "What's your name, beautiful?"_

"Carter, who the fuck is it? He's going to screw her up…"

"Man, you're probably dead on with that statement..." He laughed back, keeping his eyes on the screen, on Lily's breasts so close to him, on the man staring directly at them at her expense, at Jeff's.

"_My name is Alex." It had been something her and Shane had come up with on the drive to the club, and it worked well as he leaned back, offered her his arm, and smiled. _

_"Well Alex, what do you say we get out on that floor for a while?"_

"_Sounds….great." She smiled to him, dropping her glass to the bar, heaving once, twice, breathing deep as only Jeff could hear and understand over the music, and let her new date spin her across the dance floor, under the blue, the green, the red hypnotic lights, filled in space and time with music, harmony, something completely new, something completely different than what she had been stuck with the last week. Her mind, her memory, all fading with the noise, the pressure of a man's jeans at her backside, his hands on her body, his breath on her neck. Every lasting joke played over in her head, the funniest things she'd ever heard before had come from his mouth, and now it was hot on her ear._

As she let everything fade away, it was who was ready to drive recklessly and blind to kick some ass. He didn't understand why his body, his mind was betraying him now, of all times, when she needed his help and focus. But then again, she had decided to scamper off with the first hot famous man to walk across her path, and forget even involving herself in the case.

He sat silently and still for another minute or so, letting the music drift in and out of his pores, consume him, burn him with the heat of her breath in the darkness, in his ears as it was in this other man's. It should have been him there, doing whatever this guy was doing to her body, her spirit, the noises he was making, the whispers of strange, instant intimacy, all of the romantic cliché's playing out, it should have been him. But it wasn't, and he kicked himself for even admitting that now, got up from the couch, ripped the headphones from his ears and wandered off into the blackness of each step, feeling for the bed as he tripped over its corner, a chair, the table, his guitar, struggling to just make it out to the balcony, just make it to get a smoke. He needed to inhale the demons that had kept Lily Hanson at bay for eight long years, hold them within, burn his liver, his lungs with them, and then release it all until he stopped trying to imagine what ritzy hotel bed she would end up in, at what end of the city it would be, and upon which position her celebrity love interest would graze her into.

"What the fuck is his problem?" Carter asked Andy as they sat stunned by the damaging leave, the angry fit. The younger agent shrugged his shoulder without response, and in the focus of trying to determine what it was that was up with Sands, they heard Lily speaking again, and saw her stepping away from the other guy with a shouted apology, backing out of the dance floor, and off towards the bathroom.

She made it in free and clear, without any tears or angry fits in public. But inside of the bathroom, empty, alone, she began to kick the wall, the door, slammed her hand down on the counter as she drew the faucet on, and ignored completely the camera hidden away inside of her dress, as well as the two remaining men, breathing heavily in anticipation within her ear. She wet one of the fancied towels on the marble counter, ran it over her face, neck, and down against her breasts, everywhere that the heat was, everywhere she needed to relax. Something had taken over her during her spout with fame on the dance floor, something she didn't like, because it wasn't her at all. And the guys had seen it, Jeff had listened to it probably, and that made her nervous with embarrassment. While she calmed herself though, and looked deeply into the mirror at her eyes, her lips broken with the heat of another man's on accident, she began to cry. Danny, surprisingly enough, was the one to console her.

"Lily…" he spoke gently into the headset. "…you ready to come back for the night? We can do this tomorrow or something."

"I'm sorry you guys, I really wanted to help."

"Its fine, Lily." Andy broke in, watching her tears fall down between her crossing fingers. "There's a hundred different ways to catch this fucker, we'll call Shane for you."

"Ok." She replied finally, brushing away the last of the tears, wiping her nose, fixing her hair, and all the while thinking about why she hadn't heard Jeff speak yet. She looked closely into the mirror, where she knew they could see her, and finally asked, "Is Jeff there?"

They hesitated to respond, simply because they didn't know what the hell had gotten into him as of late, just as she was fixing to find a lover in her celebrity date, he had darted away. Danny though broke into both of their thoughts.

"He just…left, Lily. I think he needed to smoke."

She had known it, because she had known Jeff too well. And with a plastered smile to the mirror, a tip of her heels backwards as she walked to the door of the bathroom, she whispered quietly to both of them, on her way out of the club, "I screwed up."


	14. Still Feels Good

**Still Feels Good**

* * *

_ Part 1:_

The heater of the car spun a web of calm across her lap, under her dripping, frozen nose, along her braced knuckles and ears. Florida in January was no better than Boston, it just didn't have snow. There was a curse in her head for having left the hotel, dressed the way she was, with only Shane's extra coat to ward off the cold as they drove in silence across a bridge. Tampa was lit up, as it should be, the way she wanted to experience it. But for Lily, all that was left was guilt, shame, embarrassment and the sole idea that she had done nothing on this night but make herself appear to be a tramp in front of the one man whose opinion, still meant anything to her in this world.

Jeff and she had been through more together than most people would ever wish to handle, or survive for that matter. He had once been her rock, when she felt there was nothing left to be held up by, and she had been his, even when he fought her off out of bravery. And here they were again, eight years later and two broken hearts consumed. Shane could do nothing to console her, not the way she required at this point, and it broke her own heart as well watching Lily sit in silence, drumming over the heat, the radio, the sights in the cold window's reflection.

"Umm…Carter and Andy wanted to go out and get drinks, since it's still pretty early…did you want to come with us?"

Hesitating with a response, she watched as a red Mustang full of laughing, singing, smiling girls pulled up alongside them near the end of the bridge. The tinted windows prevented them from seeing her staring, but she could see them in whole, the innocence, the excitement of being that age, without a care in the world. She'd been there once, with a college boy's warm lips melting her skin, half empty Corona bottles on the hood of a tired Trans Am, exhausting every possibility of ever growing up or away from each other. She felt this still when she turned to respond to Shane's offer.

"No, that's ok. I'm really tired."

Shane nodded with a quick smile, "Alright, I'll just let you out at the hotel?"

"That's fine Shane, thanks."

Again she looked back out of the window, seeing the sparkle of the moon on the icy waters of the Gulf Bay, stretching out forever, with a few blinking lights on the horizon. It was beautiful, a sight that reminded her so much of the boats on the distant Atlantic coast of Chatham, that it nearly made her cry, for the second time that night. But it was the music, spilling out through the speakers, classic rock from her past, from her time of whirlwind adventure and romance that brought her back down to earth, and kept the moisture from her eyes. _More Than A Feeling, _recorded and released in the year of her birth, by a band that not only grew up in the same basements as her father and his friends, but were the band that took her heart away every single time Jeff would cover their songs on his guitar. The song drained out of the speakers, meaning very little to Shane, but the world to Lily, for it was her sign.

This was the song that had played the first time Jeff had caught her hand in his own, and walked her down to the Old Grist Mill. It was the tune that blared out as he leaned in with a whisper and kissed her on the dirty and empty streets of Boston, the night the Red Sox lost their chance at the World Series, again. It was the song that Jeff made sure was filtering out of the speakers the night that Lily came into his room, nervous, ill equipped and desperate to know what he felt like, for the very first time. It was in many ways their song, as it was to millions of other lovers, friends, Bostonians. And as she sat with a renewed smile on her face, a spark in the center of her heart, she tried to fill her head with the details of their first time spent together, the first time she felt the heat of skin that had otherwise been covered and out of reach on his body, the first time he had lit up her world with only his tongue. It was way more than just a feeling when she was around him, it was the earth, shaking, shimmying, doing back flips over the Green Monster.

The song played for minutes, just long enough to get them back to the hotel, and right out in front at the valet. Lily looked over to Shane with a drowsy but thankful smile, hugged her quick with a kiss to the cheek, and tore out of the black SUV with a hop on her now bare feet. Shane tossed out the pink heels to her with a wink and nod as Carter and Miles came jogging out of the hotel.

"Hey Lily." Danny greeted her with a smile, and a warm hand to her shoulder. "You doing ok?"

"Yeah, yeah Danny I'm fine. Just tired."

"Right." He shuffled for a moment with her, helping to secure all of her belongings in her arm with laughter, until she questioned timidly.

"Is Jeff upstairs by any chance?"

Danny grinned, knowing full well what it was that had come over each of them, even though he still had very little detail on the subject. He would have to pull them from Shane later. "He's up there. Sleeping, I think."

"Oh." She was defeated.

"But don't worry; he always wakes up for beautiful women."

Her eyes lit up again when she peered into his with acknowledgment, patting his hand kindly and replying once more, "Thanks for the flattery." And then she was off into the warmth of the hotel, bare feet and all as Carter called out back to her.

"No problem, Harvard!"

She slightly heard him as she rushed across the hotel lobby, not in any sort of embarrassment this time, not because she felt out of place in her dress and bare feet, messy hair and tired eyes, because she actually fit right in with the crowd in that case. She was running, darting through bodies and luggage, to get to the elevator, the button, her toes on the shiny tile floor, the wobble of her knees, her shifting eyes, sparkling smile, all keeping a rhythm of the song that had brought her back to life instantly, the beat that meant only passion to her, only Jeff beneath warm covers in the middle of darkness and intimacy. It was more than a feeling, because it was now a stifling need.

* * *

Jeff wasn't asleep, but he was exhausted and slammed into the comfort of the bed, directly in the middle, the most comfortable he had been since leaving Washington. His bones were aching, throbbing with a sting he couldn't discern, it wasn't the need to pleasure himself and it wasn't being overworked, God knows it wasn't that at all. The pills were only making him more lucid, more tired, but they also helped, just like his doctor said they would. Sneaky, little physician that she was, she wanted him to rest, and he knew it now by the medication's effects.

The radio was playing out with something somber, a country station that Carter had left playing when he darted out, and Sands had to admit, it wasn't half bad. Whoever was singing was at least singing the truth to him, a deep, Cash wannabe of course, but honest all the same. _'Girl, I've made a name, everybody writes off. An open road hard-case, a honky-tonk lost cause. The fate I'm looking at, there ain't no way around. A long and lonely path…I'm destined to go down.' _It was certainly where he was headed, any day now, soon as this case of revenge was settled, he'd be back in DC, alone in an apartment, paid for by his dad's still increasing inheritance to him, and without the one thing he knew he needed, despite all his work to push it away. _'Yeah, there ain't much of nothing in me, left to be saved, but baby I bet…if you could love somebody like me…(again)…there might be, hope for me yet.'_

His eyes were killing him as he lay wondering on the lyrics, the cold chill entering in through the opened balcony, and on the sound of his cell phone ringing, from halfway across the room. There was no way in hell he was getting it, not a chance in this world, he was too relaxed. He needed…

"Ah, what the fuck…" he grunted, annoyed at the caller's persistence. It was draining out the hick music he was becoming accustomed to and he didn't like it one bit. "It better not be fucking Dane." In no mood to deal with his arthritic and probably livid boss, he knew he had no choice but to answer the ring, constant and blaring through the wide room, the blackness. He jumped out of the bed in only his boxers, shivering as he stood with a hand to the mattress for balance and walked along the edge of the bed, following the sound, trying to remember where the phone was. Table…no. Couch…no. The pile of clothes dropped into the middle of the floor, allowing him to trip and crack the screen of his phone as it was determined to ring….yes. He reached under his foot, a deep sigh as he flipped open the phone, and responded with a tired grunt.

"What?"

"Its Carter man…you better be fucking up."

"Why…" he yawned with a stretch.

"Because," he chuckled through the receiver, as they drove into the heart of Tampa. "You're about to have company."

He stopped out of the stupidity of his partner's words, the ridicule, the absurdity, the complete Carter-ness of it. Jeff hated him sometimes, especially when he called him at midnight with stupid fucking statements like this.

"Got hammered that quick, did ya? He's amazing…" another yawn with a wicked chuckle.

"I'm fucking serious. Lily's on her way up, just passed her. She's coming for you…man."

This wasn't a statement, this was a fact, an honest to God need-to-know detail. And he sure as hell needed to know, his head did, his heart did, his gut and balls needed it. Sands shot his head up over to the doorway, or at least where he pictured it would be, contemplating the time he had to make himself look sexy without being able to actually see the sexiness of it. It wasn't worth it. She was on her way.

He breathed once, hearing the noise inside of the SUV as he felt the cold breeze on the ass of his boxers from the open sliding doors. "Ah, shit."

* * *

"I can't believe you're going up to my brother's hotel room…to seduce him…_you_, Lily Hanson…simply amazing, you are."

She laughed while strolling out of the elevator, shoes still in her hand and hair in wisps of nature. Lily had changed completely since leaving the club, she was confident again, she felt sexy as hell, and saw nothing wrong in what she was about to do. As much as she needed it, she knew, being a doctor, that the blind man needed it more.

"Look, Jeff never passes up sex. And I doubt he's been having much of it lately…"

"You're the devil, God, it's no wonder we're friends!" Shane was cracking up while still driving the SUV, Carter on the phone beside her, all in plot and scheming, Andy in the back seat shaking his head. "You better hurry up though…"

Lily halted silently in the middle of the long hall, listening intently. "Why?"

"Because in about, oh…8 minutes, the pornos' in the suites are free."

"So what?"

"So…it's Jeff. You and I both know what--" Her brain clicked with humor, but defiance. Lily fell into her heels and toes again, darting from the wall, running down the hall in hysterics, not caring about the sleeping guests. Her feet pattered across the high carpet, shoes flinging back and forth as she shouted and laughed with Shane all the way to the their rooms. "You better get in there before some twenty-five cent hand job takes over!"

"I'm going…I'm going…"

"Good…I'll see you in the morning, slut!" She smiled when her feet landed at the doorway of the guys' room, laughed once more, and hung up with Shane. Her pink shoes slouched in her hand at the thigh of her black dress, still falling down low, still revealing everything she knew Sands couldn't see anyway. Lily breathed in deep, knocking once, twice, feeling seventeen again, knocking again and then stopping, her heart racing like the first time this happened, like the first time she crawled under the covers of his bed without clothes on.

She heard fumbling from within the room, a few shouts of pain and torment, and stifling another giggle, she waited with patient eyes on the room number and peephole. Thirty seconds passed, the knob twisted, the door cracked open, and the view changed immensely.

* * *

**Boston, Mass.**

_September 12, 1993 – midnight_

_It was raining, and that should have been her first sign that all of her intentions would follow through, even against her nervousness. Rain always seemed to make Lily do rational things, crazy, barely planned, spontaneous but usually beautiful things. Standing on the step of Jeff's apartment building, her finger maniacally pressing the button for his place, she tapped her boot on the rug, licked her chapped lips with a bite, and watched car lights pass in the streaming rain. It would be almost two minutes before he heard the buzz in his sleep, and answered. _

"_Yeah…" he spoke groggily, "…who is it?"_

"_Jeff, open up! It's raining!"_

"_Lily?"_

"_Yes." Her answer was short, but he immediately buzzed her up and she threw open the iron gate of the community brownstone. The tiled floor was slick with the wetness of her boots, but she prevailed, darting up the steps one by one, not caring to take the elevator two floors tonight. Jeff was at the top of the stairs, leaning over the spiraled lookout, watching her with a confused and sleep ridden smile. _

"_What in the hell are you doing here, Lily? It's like…twelve."_

"_I know," she shouted with a whispered tone upwards, as she finished off the last flight of stairs. _

"_Are you okay?" he asked finally as she made it to his level, came nearer to his form, and wrapped her arms around his waist. Holding her tight, he whispered into her ear, "Is everything ok? Did something happen? It's the middle of the week…"_

"_I'm fine, I just…" she pulled back away from him, a sparkle in her eyes, a light that wasn't there the weekend before when he had driven away from her house. "I just needed to finish something."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_I'm ready Jeff. I know it now, I do. I'm ready to be with you…" He tried not to smile at this and remain serious, but when her lips fell into his with a fluttered force, he couldn't help but drown in the beauty of her ridiculous nature. The fact that she had taken a taxi all the way from the Cape, to show up in the rain at his apartment, in the middle of the week, just to tell him she was ready to finish off something they had started in the New York Harbor four months before. It was so Lily that he couldn't help but to laugh, kiss her harder, and give in. _

_No matter that it was twelve o'clock on a Tuesday. No matter that he had a Detective's exam in the morning. No matter, but what color lace she was wearing under her jeans this time. _

* * *

"Room service, or something?"

"Sure…" she smiled at him through the crack of the door, scratching her nose anxiously. "I come bearing…pills. What do you think?"

"I think that you sound an awful lot like a girl I used to know. Ugly little thing, knobby knees, and no breasts." She shook her head at him, seeing the red puffiness of his eyes in the light of the hall, without his glasses on.

"Carter was right, you were asleep."

"And now I'm not."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, you should be." It was mean the way it came out, and Sands didn't know whether he intended on it being or not, but he soon fixed it as he heard her ankles crack in a motion to walk away from him. "But…your pills should help, and I've got beer. We can make a party out of it."

She laughed at him, "That's ok, you're probably tired."

Then turning off, he caught her with his voice again, "Hey kid…" her eyes motioned up to where he wavered in the doorway, his body propped away from her out of pure disillusionment, "I'm inviting you in. You better come."

He was right, he was always right. She was the one who had come to his room, knocked, issue the need for sex in her head, wanted to feel his body upon her for the rest of the night, and now she was trying to cop out. Literally. Jeff was inviting her inside, to continue what her mind had already climaxed to a hundred times in the last ten minutes of running through the hotel. She needed a chance to get closer to that sensation, Lily wanted to find the option in her hand, so she went inside past him.

The room was dark, cluttered, and smelled of stale cologne and Budweiser, things she knew all too well from having been raised with an older brother, as well as having been in Jeff's company for so many years. Nothing had changed, with him or the other men in the world, and it was a comfort to know this at least. She dropped her shoes to the floor by one of the beds, walking around carefully in the dark, touching the bedspread he had been laying upon, rumbled now, walked atop his jeans and black shirt in a heap on the floor and smiled when she heard him speak to her from the other side of the room.

"So you came back pretty early, for someone who was getting hit on all night…" he elaborated and gave the word a plural effect for the mere fact of showing her his disinterest in what she had so been interested in at the club, for proving to her why he had tore the headset away and taken off from the help.

"Actually, it wasn't all night for your information, and it was only _one_ man."

"Lily…I don't care."

"You obviously do…"

"Oh come on..." She winced at him annoyingly, as he handed her one of the cold beers from the fridge, and moved to sit down behind her on the bed's edge. Lily remained standing though, just off to his side, watching him as she sensed he was watching her in his mind, with his scent, his ears and taste of air, of her around him. The nature of being blind fascinated her, but at the same time, as in the current situation, it made her want to break down and cry.

"Nothing happened, Jeff."

"Fine. Again…what do I care?" He asked with emphasis, wanting to make clear to both her and himself.

"I didn't say you cared, I just--"

"You're a grown woman now, Lil. Even if I was bothered by the thought of you sleeping with someone else, it would do me no good to tell you. You have to make your own decisions now, like a big kid. Right?" He chuckled as he took another swig of his beer and settled further onto the bed, feet straddling the base board. Lily could only study him, the man he had become from the boy who she thought could never have been anything but, the college boy, the rebel without a single cause to his name, the fleeting romantic. Jeffery was broken now, and by the looks of it, had little hope of thinking that she was there for any other reason but to continue annoying him. Lily knew, she had to change that somehow.

Shifting gears on him almost instantly, she came nearer to the bed, where his knees were settled high on the edge, and pressed her stomach against them, leaning into his legs, his body on the bed. Jeff felt her come to him, her chest and belly at the skin of his legs, and he sat up on his elbows, wishing he could see what his mind was tracing for him. He wouldn't have believed it if someone had been sitting on his shoulder assuring him it was happening. This wasn't happening, not now, not again, not ever. It wasn't happening because he couldn't let it, he had to hold strong, he couldn't let her know.

"Do I get to make any decision I want now, Sheldon?"

"Uhh…why?" He wasn't necessarily nervous, just stricken with a resolute fear. He sat up straighter, his knees falling away and Lily standing tall before him on the bed again, beer slipping from her fingers.

"Because if the territory is open…" she leaned back on her heels, stepping out towards the open space near the now closed balcony doors, seeing the glittering waves again, the lights of boats, the beat of that song still reeling in her head. "…then I'm wondering if you'll let me investigate it."

Jeff stood up again, rubbing at the hunger in his gut, which wasn't for food. He sensed her near the large glass doors, standing there, waiting for him to accept her to his bed; it was what she wanted, because it was what he wanted. The blackness around him faded into grey as her light changed, her voice softened, and he came closer to her.

"I wanna see…"

"You wanna see what?"

She turned, dropping her now empty beer bottle to the carpet below, making a stride towards his half naked form in the deep darkness of the room, "I want to see if it still feels good."

* * *

"_Kiss me, Jeff…I need you…" she whispered loudly, pulling him by the thick cotton of his sweatshirt back inside of the apartment, his lips falling to hers just as his hands found a safe haven on the wall above her head. Below him she writhed, as he instantly became in control of the situation, the way she had always wished it to be. Jeff grabbed at her arms, her waist, thighs, hips, mouth especially, bringing him into her from the wall space, touching the hardness of his boxers to her jeans. _

"_Thank God for regrets…huh?" he chuckled against her ear as he drew it between his lips, tongue lapping over the back and front, teeth biting down hard on its softness. _

"_I won't…." she gasped as he blew against the now warmth of her neck, pulling her hips up to settle her high against the wall near the door, legs wrapping around him, "I won't regret anything else."_

_Her every word was bringing him closer to needing release, closer to breaking the barrier of his boxers with his own pressure, and grunting with delight as he came to her ear again, "Good," he growled, shoving his still protected blade into her warming center. His teeth loosened as he drew back, fumbling with the button and zipper of her jeans, her own hands scrambling with his sweatshirt as she tugged it away. _

"_Music, Jeff. We need music first." Her breath was haggard, but sweet in his ear as he carefully let her feet fall back to the floor and kissed the top of her head._

"_You're damn right, music…let me get some."_

* * *

"If what still feels good, Lily?"

She hesitated with a wild grin, her hand moving up to brush back the fallen black strands of his hair, behind his ear. "The first time, Jeff."

He couldn't think, and Lord knew he couldn't see which made it worse. He could run away, but he would kill himself just making it to the door. He could fuck her, but he wouldn't be able to see the marking it left upon her face as she screamed his name. Either way, Sands knew he was screwed, literally or not. He opted in the end, to try and not let it happen, which of course, was stupid.

"It probably won't." He huffed, making his way back to the fridge for another beer, trying to completely disregard her wish. "It's not the same anymore."

"And why not?" she grew immediately defensive, following him to the kitchenette of the room. "Because we're not…sitting down on the Cape, talking about the future that's already come and gone? Because we're not…I don't know, stealing your dad's yacht or jumping off of Hangman's Peak?" Nearing his bent body from behind, just over the mini fridge, she sighed deeply and concluded, "Or is it because Tommy's not here? You feel guilty; trying to be anywhere near me because of what happened to Tom? Eight fucking years ago, Jeff. You have to move on…"

It hit him like a bag full of bricks to the head, and rising from the cabinet, beer missing from his grip, he turned towards where her voice had spoken, his head following an invisible gaze down upon her own, his teeth clenched and knuckles gripping into fists. He wasn't mad at Lily, he wasn't mad at Tom, he was mad at himself, for letting what she said, be the truth. Though he tried his damndest to hide it away.

"No. It has nothing to do with Tom. We just shouldn't."

"That's a shitty excuse. I'm twenty-nine years old Jeff, I'm not married, I don't have kids or a boyfriend or a dog. All I have is a handful of memories that involve time spent _with_ you, and time spent _without_ you. I'm tired of trying to ignore one for the other." She spun away when she sensed tears, but didn't allow them to flow, instead she only stomped her bare foot and shouted, "Dammit. I swore I wouldn't bother with this. I wasn't going to force you to accept me, there's no point." Picking up her shoes from the floor, her phone, she leapt over a pile of dirty clothes and shoes, and jumped back towards the door. Jeff though, almost as if prepared for her, prepared for the moment that had arisen against his own judgment, reached over the counter of the bar, and pressed play on the small stereo system in the room. A beat immediately flew out, and quit her tracks on impact for the doorknob.

* * *

**_PART 2:_**

"_Lily?" he knocked clearly once, and then let his hand slid down the shut bathroom door. "You fall in or something?"_

_Her giggle was apparent even through the door, but more so when she finally opened it, apprehensively. She had discarded everything but her pink lace bra and panties, ones she had bought with the intention of this sort of night, never once expecting it to be tonight. It was supposed to happen months ago, and after it didn't, she thought it never would. Proven wrong though, Jeff eyed her both whimsically and drained completely, she was and had always been the most breathtaking sight to him, no different, only better in the light of the moon and rain at his window. He smiled, walking towards her as she coiled her arms over her waist with hesitation, but he drew them away with his hands. _

"_Don't be so nervous, Hanson. It's not like I've never seen you before…"_

"_I know that."_

"_So…let me soak it up…" he grinned, bringing her chin to his face, taking with it her only breath, covering her lips with as much heat as he could create. The music instantly took him away, her away in him. The song, classic, meaningful, theirs and Boston's alike. There was no better tune for this moment, nothing that could seduce their minds quicker into the sheets. Feeling her hands on the warm skin of his stomach, she pushed away and he drew back with still closed eyes. _

"_Is there a reason you just so happened to choose__** this**__ song?" She wasn't upset, but rather smiled devilishly as she leaned down to kiss along his neck, his chest, his arms wandering about her waist as he stepped back with her towards the bed. _

"_This song kicks ass. Don't even try to tell me Tiger Lily…that this song…" his breath was catching between her kisses and nibbling on his skin, her demeanor so much more confident than the first attempt, "…this song…doesn't do something to you…to me…"_

"_Really? What's that?" She bit down hard on the underside of his jaw, licking to sooth it after as he growled and eased onto the edge of the bed. "It's uhh….you know…ah." His breath caught as she laughed quietly, easing down onto his lap, her legs straddling across his waist, hands tangled in his hair as he held her to him. _

"_Ah? What's….ahhhh…." she teased, taking the tender flesh of his earlobe between her lips, stroking over it lightly with tongue and teeth and then falling back to see his eyes shrunken and shut. "What's ahhh, Sheldon?"_

_Her hand, strategically falling down his chest, over his hip, and between his thighs and her legs atop him, carefully nudged the growing pain below his boxers, rubbing it past the fabric. "Is that it?" She was good, she had gotten only better, amazing, out of nowhere, out of hardly any experience. Jeff was proud to know her, to be with her, to call her his. His gratification was shown with one more loose breath, a groan, and a quick flip of her body onto the mattress, back to cotton, his hardened size grinding into the thin, barely useful lace of her underwear. He leaned down to her ear, hearing her breath catch just from the heat of his body atop hers, and cooed with as much emphasis on both words and crushing hips as possible. _

"_You tell me…what ahhh is now."_

* * *

_**I woke up this morning, and the sun was gone…**_The once clear skies outside were rumbling when Lily turned back around in the doorway, the music striking her eardrum beat for beat, her toes needing to tap on the carpet to the beat of the thunder outside, to the beat of her heart._**Turned on some music to start my day… **_It was officially 12:18 when she looked over to the alarm clock on the nightstand, past his shoulder, and then back to where he was standing, a coy frown on his face as if he thought she might have disappeared through the door already. But she hadn't and wouldn't. _**I lost myself in a familiar song…**_too familiar, for her, for him, only now sensing her breath across the space, the sound of her shoes falling back down to the carpet, the crack of an ankle, another ankle, a laugh as she came nearer. He didn't move. He was lost in the lyric; he was lost in her again. Sands had done everything he could think of to stop it from happening, but the rain, the music, the darkness, the way her hand had felt on his cheek as she brushed his hair away, it was Boston again, a cold night in September, which very rarely occurred._**Closed my eyes and I slipped away…**_He was blind, but felt as though he could see the world in the moments that passed. She was walking, but hadn't made it six steps before he took off in her direction, from where the sway of her hips met open air, the sound of her breath hooking as his arms tucked firmly around her waist and lifted her entire body back, towards the doorway, against the wall, hard, desperate, at last.

"Jeff…" she struggled, drawing her arms around his neck as his body locked her into the wall, hands on her back, her waist, her neck. He didn't kiss her, not yet, only relaxed, felt her, touched her, reminded himself of her and learned about what she had become. His hands were his eyes now, and they felt just as relaxing, just as intoxicating as she remembered the embers in his gaze once being. "Are you sure? Don't change your mind just for me…"

His response was as debonair as anything before it, the heat, the coiling of his tongue directly across each of her lips, the passion, the grief, the demand that hadn't been there all those years ago, the aggression that had grown even far away from his father's hate, his death. This was something concocted in him over the eight years she hadn't known who he was, this was the CIA, this was Agent Sands, this was Mexico, and she could feel it on her neck, her ear, her jaw, lips, even down to the tight separation of her breasts in the front of her dress. His hands, fingers extended down the length of her stomach, her thigh, drew up the draping black satin, wrinkling it in his palm as he slid his hand higher and deeper past her lace panties, holding onto her moist center. Teasing at the throb of her heightened bud, he grinned into her shoulder blade as he found the tormented folds, wet for him, giving his finger the opportunity it needed, to seduce and drive inside of her. Clenching his teeth as she whined into his ear, "God, Jeff…" he felt immensely proud, to still know her so well.

"Does that answer your question?"

Lily had nothing to say, nothing to wonder as she let her eyes fall down, lustful, hungry, only known by her. But Sands could hear her desire, he could feel it tighten around the joint of his index finger as he slowly pushed it further inside of her. There was no need for intellectual, Harvard studied responses…he only needed to hear the same sigh from her that had once sent him over the final edge, and made him a confident, one woman man. A long time ago…before he lost himself.

* * *

"_Feel okay?" She had yet to breathe once in almost three minutes, as he gently, carefully inched his finger inside of her strapping heat, her innocent form, breaking into a painful zone by the distraught on her face. Her relaxation was coming on slower than it had with the other girls Jeff had been with. But it didn't matter, because those other girls didn't matter to him anyway, only she did. "If it hurts too badly I can st--"_

"_No…" she cut him off with exasperation, moving her hand to brush back his fallen hair, as she always did. "I want this. Please, just kiss me again." _

_He leaned into her fallen form upon the bed, dropping down onto her lips, his finger still tickling and sliding within her core, one easy stroke at a time to the inner walls she had never known could exist in such ways. Lily deepened the kiss as he moved his finger more, nearly in a pumping motion, as she held onto his neck as tightly as possible, his tongue probing through lips to meet hers royally, dripping with lust and fire. His momentum was paced, but came on quick, with his own need staggering with depth inside of his boxers, as close to begging for release as he imagined it could be. He wanted her to touch him, just as soon as he brought her out of her own sparkling ecstasy. _

"_Jeff…please…it…"_

"_It what? Tell me, Lily…what?"_

"_It feels so…" a gasp of air she much needed, a drop and buck of her hips as she allowed herself to grind against his single finger, which at an instant was met by a second one entering her, and then another suction of air between her lips. "It feels so…so…GOOD!" Jeff watched her body easing onto and away from his finger, her own natural pace taking over in the manipulation, the game of it. Lily had taken to fucking his finger and had never even realized it, nor the smile she had brought to his face so innocently. _

"_It's all for you, Lily…take it…take it, baby." And she did, took every last centimeter his fingers had to offer her in the dark light of the bed. She drowned his fingers with her warmth, the essence of her inner sanctum soaking him in ways he'd only dreamed since the day they had met. Her scream, followed by a tilt of her head away from him, heavier breathing, and a bite of her lower lip, practically did him in with merely a view. _

* * *

His finger was hooked inside of her, like a fish to bait, stuck, hidden, deadly, and she screamed his name out in an octave she thought she never would again, even in fighting. The sweetest of her spots had been pummeled by the delicate curve of his fingers edge, not once, not twice even, but a countless number in her head. He was rough with her in the act, sensually rough, animalistic, brutal almost to the point of being perfectly acceptable, perfectly in tune with who he was, who he had obviously become now. He allowed her body to ease down to the floor with her climax subsiding into imaginary stardust, and held her gently at the waist, still pressed into the wall, his mouth holding a breathing note at her forehead, kissing only once for emphasis of his good intentions.

She was buried under his weight at the doorway, face tickled by the dewy spot on his chest, hands on his back holding him to her, for whatever reason she couldn't discern. Something had just happened, that was never meant to, at least not at that moment in time. And yet, perhaps somehow, someone had decided it was. It made no sense whichever way the world spun, because hers was upside down from the moment he pushed her into the wall. This was why she had come to his room, run up the elevator and down the hall. This feeling of completeness, of belonging again, the whole of her being filled to the brim, excited, reminded of passion, of something that remotely resembled love in the way his brow twitched with his finger's action, and the way his hands held her. Sands had been dangerous, he'd been tough with her from the moment he met her again until the jolting end of her first orgasm, led by him, since 1996. But at the same time, she had felt the other side of him, inside of her, around her, breathing down her neck, whispering in her ear. It was the side that once knelt down with a small diamond, on the dock at her house, with her mother and brother watching from the window.

_That side._

_This side now._

"Lillian Grace…Hanson." Her full name, that's all he could think to say, was her full name in pure excitement as his flannel pajamas twitched with his own need. "You still tremble exactly the same."

Smiling in confusion, she replied in note, "I did that, just so you'd say so." He was humored by her wit, still to this day, like everything else. He couldn't see her anymore, no, but he could sense deeper within her than anyone before him, and anyone after. He saw things that one can't determine with eyes, he heard and felt her in moments, in motions that most guys had fantasized about when around her. Jeff and Lily were always one, and now, they were reunited awkwardly, beautifully, confusingly.

"You got tougher on me, Jeff."

"Did I?"

"Yeah. But it's good…it still feels good. I told you…" she breathed deep as she watched him pull away from the wall, and saw the strain in his pajamas bottoms, what she herself had caused. Guilt washed over her with a grin, and as her hand reached out and took the waistband of his pants, she whispered to him again, "Let me fix that."

"Fix it? It's not broken, Lily. In fact the damn thing is in supreme condi--" She stopped him with her second hand to his lips, leaning up to kiss each one of his eyelids, swollen, sewed shut with yellow, green, brown bruises from his return back to the States. His body warmed from head to toes in an instant, the calm, motherly affection she had about her, which at the same time could be as vixen a mother as she wanted to be. He imagined that if one's mother could have Florence Henderson's sweet mind, but with Cameron Diaz' legs, they would be Lily. All of this he felt still too, sensed, tasted, took in better without eyes than ever before _with_.

"It's my turn to help you. I promise…," she continued, kissing him lightly on the lips, with her tongue ever so gently breaking them apart, licking once across the inside of his mouth and then withdrawing again, "…I'm better than I was in 96'." Stepping aside with only a hand on his stomach, sliding over his now bouncing cock under the fabric, she walked towards the bed.

"You, kid…are fucking killing me. Between those magic pills of yours…and those legs of yours…Christ Lily, did you plan all of this?" He wandered over to where he felt the closest bed's posts, and heard her jumping across the mattress. She laughed, tucking herself underneath the sheets and tearing away her black dress. With as strong an arm as she could, she tossed it across the bed to the end, hitting Jeff in the face with it. He was struck instantly by the aroma of her stale Chanel, lingering in the slinky fabric, taking a naughty whiff before tossing it to the floor and crawling up and onto the bed, his hands outstretched in a blind hunt for her nearly naked form. "I think you forgot something, miss."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, opening her legs wide in the center of the bed as he huddled into them on accident, in search of her hands, or face, or lips, and instead found his palm against her still throbbing center.

"Yeah…but not to worry." He grinned wickedly, rubbing harder along the sensitive spot beneath her lace garment, refraining from plunging in a second time. "I provide assistance in stripping…for only a base fee."

Lily giggled as she felt the tingle of his fingers unwinding the thin, strapping material of her laced thong, and watched him pull it down over her hips, between thighs and eventually off the tip of her toes. She was nude, completely, half drunk even, under Sheldon's hold, under his breath and hands. In other words, as blankly as she could put it in her mind…either way tonight, she would be screwed, fucked, hammered hard and rough, satisfied, or as they used to refer to it on the Cape in the summers, she would be a _wobbly legged, wicked dooney. _She liked that one best in fact, it was perfect.

"What color were they?" referring to the now discarded underwear, he smiled from between her legs.

"Guess."

"Shit…I have to go with red. Red-Sox…red-thong…"

"Good analogy, but you're wrong. Blue."

"Ahh…my second guess. _Blue_…" he whispered, his hands falling down to her inner thighs as he shoved his weight into her against the pillows of the bed, settling his mouth just above her own. "…just like those eyes of yours. God, I wish I could see them."

He sounded angry at the mere thought of it, and it made her want to cry for him. Never again would he see the world unless it was in his mind, where her eyes were locked away, her body, her smile, her everything. Everything she could see, he had to pretend to see and enjoy. But she knew he remembered her eyes, there was no possible way he could have forgotten such a thing, and as she pulled at his tangled hair and brought his lips down to hers finally, she could have sworn she felt a tear fall against her cheek, his. Lily would never, not once admit to this, or bring it up to him in question, ever. But the thought took her back, and that's all that mattered anyway.

* * *

_She couldn't remember a time she was more scared, more innocent to the ways of the world. Lily was shaking under him, and when he realized this, he held her to him closer, nearly naked together atop the sheets. The rain had slowed a bit, leaving glitter on the window beside them as they both stared out. Her skin was growing pimply under his grasp, but she breathed deep and leaned her back further into his bare chest. _

"_I didn't know it was supposed to feel like that. I wish…" she sighed, turning over to look into his eyes, "I wish I hadn't waited so long to find out." He kissed her, nuzzled his nose at her ear and leaned back into the pillow. _

"_There's still more to it ya know?"_

"_Yeah…I know…"_

_He worried she was tired, or too much in pain to continue with what had been started. There was tightness in his boxers that made him grow almost nervous should this be the case. _

"_We don't have to do anymore if you don't--"_

"_No." she stopped him, pressing her palm to his cheek. "I do. Please…let's do it all." _

"_Yeah?"_

"_Yeah, Sparky." _

_He smiled, pushing back atop her with a jolting kiss, and lowered her body to the sheets, his intense length settling over to one side of his boxers, at her open thigh. She felt awkward with it there, awaiting her, nearly coming to her, but she realized that it was all part of the moment, the act. _

"_Jeff…?" She whispered under him, hands coiled in his own. _

"_Yeah?"_

"_Is…is it going to hurt?"_

_At this he stopped again, knowing that the question was more than appropriate, more than fair, way more than expected, and he carefully aligned himself with the mattress so that he could kneel above her. "Lily, I don't know." A brush of her hair in his fingers, a stroke over her cheek, her chin. "It might."_

"_I heard once that it does. A lot." _

"_Is that why you didn't want to before?"_

"_No…no."_

"_And you're sure you want--"_

"_Sheldon, yes I do. I swear." She laughed at the force of trying to convince him, their mouths meeting fervently to awaken even more passion and ease their minds. _

"_I promise I'll go easy, ok?"_

_She nodded quietly as he slid down from her lips and settled his body between her legs further, boxers pulled down and off of his feet. He felt the nerves rising and falling in her legs, her toes, and he had them too despite admitting such. Before meeting Lily, Jeff had slept with three other girls, all of which had lost their virginities prior to being with him, even beating him in one instance his senior year of high school. He hadn't known what it was like yet, at only 23, to take a girl's purity from her, to be the special one in her life. But even so, he knew that Lily meant more to him than anyone ever would, or could, and to have something that sacred, given by her to him, gave him every last reason in the world to call her his own. _

"_You okay, babe?" She smiled up at him, not knowing what else to do, but appreciating his care for her, the way he always, no matter what, made sure she was fine before the rest of the world. And the way he called her babe, baby, for almost twelve months now, she adored it. _

_"I'm good."_

"_Breathe for me, ok."_

"_Ok."_

_She tried, desperately, as she felt the strain of his length glide over her inner thigh, further towards the heat that was now boiling between her legs, and very gently sliding, circling the skin of her core. Trying not to laugh, or cry, or freak out and run, she allowed him to go on, assuming he probably knew better of what to do anyway. He stroked the head of himself around the folds of skin, slippery moisture gliding the movement, her own as she determined. And as if the bed began circling around in the sky, she felt the tip of him, glaze itself at her opening once more, and then move inside. _

_Hitched breathing swelled in her throat as she tried to relax against the pressure, the blocking sensation, the fitting of two bodies together. There was no pain yet, only discomfort. Jeff realized she was barely breathing, let alone speaking to him, and leaned his body down to her, pausing the movement of his length within her. He came inward, mouth quiet at her ear, shampooed curls tickling his nose, and spoke, "Breathe, baby. I wanna hear you breathe for me…deep Lily, breathe deep…"_

_She responded by filling her lungs and slowly releasing the air from between her lips as he stole them away in a maddening kiss. He kept her there, pinned near his mouth for the sole intent of fighting down the wall he knew was still set to arrive, one he'd heard of in hushed conversation between guy friends. The breaking point. He eased further inside of her, sensing the friction, and as she bit down on his lower lip in their kissing, he also felt the penetration occur, and her body writhe in a flash. It stung her in an instant, forced her eyes open wide as she let go of Jeff's lip and winced into the stale air. _

* * *

"Now?"

"Yes."

"You sure…?"

"Dammit, Jeff. If you're not going to do it…"

"Oh, don't think I won't kid." He smiled down at where he could see her form, beautifully in his mind, but sensed what was really happening between them. Lily was desperate to feel who he was at that moment, to see what had come between them in eight years, she wanted to know what she had been missing out on. And Jeff, in his locked state, blindfolded by a will of God, only wanted to feel what he could see in his head, which was Lily eight years before. He was afraid that should he enter her, should she breathe his name continuously, that it would be too different to bare, it would be lived, it would be spent by other men after and before him. He wanted his Lily back, the one who had said she'd be with him forever, the one who walked with innocence even after he had taken it from her. Accepting that she had grown or changed or become something else, was too difficult a task to accomplish, without being able to witness it.

She was tensing now, loosened by gravity and wound up again by the clutches of fear in both of them. She was afraid of Agent Sands, and he, was afraid of not feeling Lily anymore, but a new, grown woman, with ideas and opinions long since stretched into the world without him. Drawing her legs down against his thighs between her, she sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Maybe you were right."

Twitching his swollen brow together, leaning back on his heels, and moving away from her he appeared defeated. Defeated by his own mind. He said nothing, only listened through grays of light as she went on.

"I guess I thought that it would be the same, you know." She sat up in front of him in the middle of the bed, eyes at her knees where she wrapped the sheet around herself, "Like no time had passed, kind of thing. That's what I wanted. It's been so hard to think that…"

"That what?" he finally questioned in silence, sitting down with his legs covered by blankets as well.

"That we're two different people now."

"Are we though?"

She sighed again, hair falling in and around her eyes as she looked up to his bobbing head in the light, he was lost save for the fact that she was nearby and he was on a bed. Other than that, he knew not of anything else going on in the room, or the city, or the world.

She replied quietly, "I think we are, Jeff."

* * *

_Hours. They made love for hours. Until the sun poked in through the curtains of the apartment, and the taxis down below began honking their horns aggressively to wake them. They made the love they so had missed in each other. _

_Lily woke first, nudging her shoulders back further into the warmth of Jeff's body, where he held her waist and kept his chin nuzzled into her neck from behind. There was nothing in that moment that she would have changed about him, or her, or who they were becoming now. Nothing would be the same between them again, they had been one finally, and there was a different air about the room they were in, the bed she had slept in before, but never made love upon, the city that had given them a reason to love each other in the first place, was different. _

_Sheldon woke up without his usual headache, but instead a jumpy spirit, a need to run a mile, or skydive, or do anything to bring him back down from where he was. Her arms tightened around the form that he imagined to be asleep still, the one that had tasted and felt sweeter than anything else God had created thus far. He kissed her shoulder, her ear and the mass of unruly curls spilling down against her back and his face. He kissed the girl of his dreams. _

"_Jeff?" she asked groggily when she sensed him waking up and felt his lips on her body._

"_Morning."_

"_Morning," she smiled, tossing about in his arms to see him again for the first time in almost and only three hours. _

"_You look so beautiful." He said defiantly as he saw her face in the light of the room, needing nothing more than such a view for the rest of his life. Lily smiled shyly, but tapped her finger on his chin in appreciation as he spoke of nothing but love. "Lily Grace you are so, so perfect. I don't ever want you to leave this room, or this bed, or my--" cutting him off with a kiss, he was grateful, and pulled her closer into him. Her skin was softer than the cloud he was resting upon, and when her leg ran up high to hook at his hip and draw his body down, Lily straddling him, he laughed away the kiss. _

"_I need you to tell me something."_

_Reaching up to her breast, she growled with giggles and pushed his hand away, forcing him to listen to her, "I'm serious, I need to hear you say something first."_

"_Okay." _

"_Tell me…" she began, tracing circles on his open chest with her coral pink fingernails. "…promise me actually, that you're not going to change. I don't want you to change who you are."_

"_Lily, I'm not going to--" stopping him again with her hand to his mouth, she smiled and went on to conclude. _

"_I mean it. People always change, and grow apart and do stupid things. I don't want to do that with you, I don't want us to wake up one day and hate each other, because we're someone else completely." _

_He tried to gurgle words past her palm, but she resisted a second longer. _

"_Don't you dare change on me, Sheldon. I might not hate you when you do…but it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to get me to stay." She drew her hand back, and he said nothing, he didn't nod, or try to kiss her, or do anything but take her in, her strength, her determination in the matter. Jeff vowed never to change himself if only for her. And he vowed silently, that should such a thing ever happen, he would do everything in his power to give up what he had become, and return to the Sheldon she knew, the one she loved. _

_God only knew how she did, though. _


	15. Death and All His Friends

**Death and All His Friends**

* * *

**The Green Room – January 17th, 2004**

_8:20 am_

She hated grapefruit. She had always hated it. There was something entirely too tropical about its nature for her. She was born and raised in a place that was famous for things like cranberries, grown across the middle of the lake, the bay, and lobster. Nothing pink, and juicy, and covered in sugar. The coating made her sick as she scraped her spoon over top of it, noting how happy the fruit looked, contained its bowl, awaiting her to devour it. Florida was generally a happy place to be from what she'd seen so far, people everywhere smiling, relaxed, and enjoying their vacations. Lily wondered what it was going to take to get her to that kind of comfort now, especially having doused all illuminated flames the night before, anything left to live for taking a nose dive off the balcony.

Moving her spoon away from the fruit, she wiped it clean and began stirring the last bit of her coffee, anxiously, as she peered up and around the restaurant. The sun poured in from the green and blue glass of the windows, everything was bright, customers were generally happy, awake, alive. And she, dressed in a pair of old jeans and a heavy black sweatshirt from her Boston College days, sat slumped in a booth seat, spoon to coffee and eyes red with evening tears. She had stopped crying long enough to get herself from the room to the hotel restaurant, but it would all change again, and was starting to. The more she looked around the open space, at other tables, at the joy, she began to see things that broke what was left of her heart.

Her eyes darted to a corner booth where sat a family. Simple enough for any normal spectator, but not her. A mother and father sat to one side of the table, laughing and chatting about plans for their day's journey, while across from them, two young children, an older brother and his sister sat. They were what kept her attention, their innocence, their energy as they fought over a red crayon, and tried to beat one another at a game of napkin tic-tac-toe. She remembered days like that in her own life, sitting at the diner with her parents after church on Sundays, or at the dinner table, her and Tommy fighting for the last roll. She remembered…

* * *

"_Randall."_

"_Emerson."_

"_Cole."_

"_Denny."_

"_Luke." The alternating of young boys' voices went on, as each name was called, each player was drawn onto a side. Every name called, left the litter to be chosen from, more and more weak, less capable, and useless. Lily waited, her dad's old cap pulled down below her eyes, scratching the dirt at the ground with her sneakers, hoping for nothing more than to hear her name before Jessie, the kid with glasses, or Rob, the kid with excess baggage. But it never came, and she was left idly before the two sizeable teams. _

"_No way man, she's yours."_

"_I don't think so Mike, we had her last weekend."_

_Tommy stood at the front of the his team, having been the very first chosen into the game. The week before, Lily had played on account of him being captain, and he had chosen her first to make a point. The point though, hadn't stuck well and instead he found himself arguing with Mike to let her join them. _

"_Come on, Lily's a good hitter man."_

"_Dude, she's a girl. You're going to hell for saying that."_

"_Whatever, just let my sister play." The oldest of the boys was Mike, at a stifling fifteen years of age. He stood in front of Tom who was his best friend, thinking, darting back and forth between the Hanson duo, from boy to girl, strong to supposedly weak. Eventually, his decision was made with a roll of eyes, and Lily ran over to join their side, with the second team laughing wildly. Mike walked away in embarrassment to the mound, and Tom softly patted Lily on the back with a smile. "Thanks Tommy." _

"_You bet Lil."_

* * *

Her eyes flew open with pain. They were growing puffier, weak, wet with tears as she glanced back away from the family's table in preparation to leave the restaurant. She tried to focus on her coffee again, soon interrupted by the waitress returning to fill her cup back up.

"More coffee?"

Lily looked up at the younger girl, no more than twenty and smiled with hardened, tired eyes. "Please, thank you."

A refill, and the waitress was again off to other customers, while Lily's spoon, was returned to her cup in a sweeping stir. She let her gaze wander again, seeing older men and women with hair of white, a few businessmen, and then another table just to the side of her, at least three chairs length away. It was an older man, in his mid fifties probably, smiling and listening intently to a younger girl across from him. She went on and on about topics that Lily could only half hear in her view, but she focused harder, watching the older man's face glow contently. The girl spoke of school, her apartment, her life, and then she heard a few choice words in the conversation, peaking her interest, _"Dad, I'm so happy with him. I can't wait for you two to meet." _

The man smiled, the girl touched his arm warmly, and Lily, lost a world away, felt her eyes grow weary with a sting of sparkling tears.

* * *

"_Lily…Sam is at the door." Sitting high up in the loft of the house, she heard her dad yell from the front door at the supposed guest, but wrinkled her nose up at the thought. She didn't want to go outside and play with Sam, or any other boy for that matter, she just wanted to stay inside, and ignore stupid boys all together. "Lily?" _

_When she didn't respond to him, she heard her dad say something quietly to Sam from the doorway, and then looking out of the window seat upstairs in the hall, she saw Sam take off down the street, a football in one hand and two sodas in the other. She smiled though, knowing she was free, or at least she thought so. A second later she turned to see her dad standing at the top of the stairs, looking at her both with a whimsical smile and almost one of relief. _

"_Didn't you hear me? Sam was here, honey."_

"_I know that." She replied with a definitive plop onto the cushions at the window, and her dad came in nearer, taking a seat beside her._

"_And you didn't want to play?"_

"_No."_

"_Why's that?"_

"_Cause' boys stink the big one, dad." He laughed at her charm, her wit, all gifted by her brother no doubt. An eighteen year old filling a thirteen year olds head with such fact, such pride, such truth of the world. David Hanson was pleased with his daughter's confidence in not worrying about boys, it gave him the ability to sleep well at night. He kissed the top of her head, and quickly stood again with a chuckle. Making it back to the stairs, he was caught by her voice._

"_Hey dad?"_

"_Yeah, Lil?"_

"_I might like boys one day. A long, long time from now."_

_He smiled again, nodded, and replied, "I know that kiddo. I might have a heart attack, but I'll be ready for it."_

_Laughter faded away between them. _

* * *

Again, her concentrated eye was broken and she refocused on what was left of her toast. She nibbled at it, wiping back the falling tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and let her mind drift away from the room altogether, away from anything that could remind her of before. Lily wanted to be cleared of it all, regenerate strength, be as proud as she was as a child, with her dad, with Tommy, before the world collapsed on her head and left her wavering in darkness. She wasn't blind like Jeff, but most of the time, she felt like she was.

The toast fell to her plate again, the steam rising out of her coffee cup warmed her eyelids as they closed with further wetness, and she choked back with a sigh as they opened again. To the entrance of the restaurant, to the crowds dissipating, all leaving a young man and woman standing before her. Together they were beautiful, they were happy, upbeat, ready to enjoy their day, together. They did not look like her and Jeff, but it didn't matter, because in another time, another place, it had been them.

Her eyes were burning, ravaging of everything in them, draining, spilling emotion to the brink of existence as she fumbled with her coffee cup, and only heard one thing in her head.

"_I think I'm ready to marry you…Lily Hanson. I __**know**__ I'm ready." _

"Lily?" The trance was broken, the waves rolled away, and she got herself back in the reality of the restaurant, of the coffee trickling off the table where she spilled it. Shane was standing next to the table, helping to wipe up some of the mess with a smile. "You okay?"

"Uhh…" she tried to respond but really didn't know what might work for such a question. So she didn't and only helped aimlessly soak up the remaining spill. Shane asked to sit, and with a nod, Lily encouraged her.

""I didn't know what had happened to you, and then we came down here and I saw you sitting here all alone. What's going on?"

No answer, just a smile, and a trickling tear at the corner of her eye.

"Lily? What's wrong? Did something happen last night…"

She focused on Shane with a shake of her head, then brushed away the tears on her face quickly, and wiped her nose again with her sweater. "I was just having breakfast."

"Yeah, but you look like someone ran over you with a truck."

"Do I?" Shane nodded in empathy and handed her a napkin. "Oh, well that's good. It's my favorite style." Only laughing slightly, she drew her hand across the table to cover Lily's. If there was one thing that Shane had never been very good at, it was consoling people, or crying herself for that matter. But with Lily, who she had known better than most women ever to come into her life, she tried twice as hard to help.

"Tell me what happened. Jeff wouldn't say anything about it."

"I'm not crying about last night really."

"Then what? Talk to me." A stroke of Shane's hand over her own, and Lily felt immensely calmer, falling deep into thought, trying to determine just what exactly it was that was bothering her. There was a plethora of things, all co-existing, all tangled into one giant demon. But she tried.

"I went to school for a long time you know. Almost eight years."

It seemed a random point, but Shane went along. "Yeah I imagine."

"I learned a lot, I…I studied hard. I wanted to be a psychologist, I actually did. I wanted to help people, you know?" Lily sniffled into the napkin, and Shane nodded in understanding.

"After what happened to my dad…I just, I remember being at his funeral. It was so cold that day. I was holding onto my mom's hand, and looking across at all of these police officers, men I knew my whole life, tough, strong men." Her eyes gained momentum again in uncontrollable tearing, and no napkin could help her now. "I was stunned Shane…these men, they were all crying, I mean really crying for my dad. It shook me. I couldn't understand it. How such brave men, men who had seen and killed and lost life, could be crying, how could they not be broken in by such things already?"

She wiped her nose against her sleeve again, looking across the table to see the waitress returning with another refill. She held out her cup, sniffling, and once full again, placed it back on the table. "My mom tried to explain to me later that, even grown men cry sometimes, even cops. That policemen can hurt just as badly as little girls do at times, that their hearts break and need repairing…or in the least, just a shoulder." She paused, running her hand through her hair, as she squeezed the one held by Shane still. "That's when I decided I wanted to help them. I wanted to give back to the men who had been there for my family, I wanted to give them my shoulder when they needed it."

"Well, from what I hear by Jack you're the best psychologist the CIA has to offer anyone."

"I won't say I'm the best, but I do love my job. I come to work knowing that someone, man or woman, is going to come in there and need me, whether they say so or not. And I can help them, I do everything I can."

"And it works?"

"Most every time."

"Too bad you got stuck with my brother then." Shane helped to bring a smile to Lily's face as they thought on the subject changing, and Lily's own head dove into another portion of her job, the one that gave her hope every day that he had been away.

"Actually, I think I've been doing it for him all this time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that day at Tommy's funeral, when I saw Jeff, he was standing there…right where my father's friends had stood all those years ago. And he was broken, just like them. I had never seen him cry before Shane. It was…I don't know…_something_." Another wave of tears fell onto her sleeve, her nose running, her head spinning. "Jeff needed someone then. He needed to talk, and cry on a shoulder, probably mine. And…I didn't let him. I walked away instead, and broke him again."

"He was crushed, for sure."

"I blame myself. I have, every single day. I know it was my fault."

"He didn't go after you Lily, he's as much to blame."

"No…he's not Shane. Jeff did everything he was supposed to, he tried. And I ignored it all. I deserved the last eight years, for leaving him there like that."

"You shouldn't say that."

"It's true. I'm the reason he's the way he is now…so closed up all the time." Crying against her free palm, she breathed deeply with a cough of tears, and forced herself to go on."Every patient I've had has been Jeff, as weird as that sounds. They were always Sheldon…it gave me the chance to help him, in my mind, I was able to fix what I had broken with him."

Shane smiled with distress as she took a sip of her coffee and drew her hand back from Lily's.

"I know, it sounds completely absurd."

"It doesn't…"

"It does Shane. It does. Trying to redeem myself with him, through other people. It's stupid."

"But he's your patient now, you can help him Lily."

"No." she replied smoothly, running her fingers along the table's edge, wiping away the teardrops falling. "I ruined my chance." There was silence, complete still about their table, as the restaurant and world around them sped up, lighting, sparks of light here and there at the corner of their eyes. Shane sat watching Lily cry, and Lily sat thinking about why she was crying, why she was wasting Shane's time. And memories of things darted in and out of her head, consistently, images, words, kisses, hugs, yelling, anger, hate, love. Everything that gave her a reason or need to keep crying, came to her then. And through all of it, she thought about one single thing, one thing she still had only ever shared with her mother. It was a memory, she needed to express, if only so that Shane might understand her better.

"I remember…a few days or so after Tom's funeral, I woke up really sick. Dizzy and puking, and I thought at first it was just from being stressed, and sad…but, then I just got sicker. I thought about it, and kept recalling the day before I broke up with Jeff…that day…" she looked up to Shane, seeing the understanding in her eyes, "we, you know."

"Yeah."

"It was the last time we did actually. And in everything that happened after it, I never even paid attention to my cycle, or any of that."

"Of course not."

"Well, I got really worried, talked to my mom, and you know her, she rushed me right down to the drugstore. Got the test home, and took it. I mean my god…my brother had died a week before, and I was taking a pregnancy test to see…if I was carrying his best friend's baby. The world was falling apart, I felt it…" Lily cried harder, seeing everything in her mind, the way she wanted Shane to see it. "I sat there at the kitchen counter, with the little test pushed as far away as I could reach. And I had to wait, ten minutes or whatever."

"Right."

"And I just sat looking at it the whole time, thinking about Jeff, and that last time we were together. I wanted to hit him, I wanted to…I don't know, hate him or something. And I couldn't, I never could. As scared as I was…thinking about what it would be like raising a baby alone, without a father, with only my mom's help, I could hardly breathe sitting there."

"You still loved Jeff?"

"Of course, I did Shane. God…I couldn't stop, I tried, I did. But I never…for one single, second of my life, didn't love him. I broke everything off because…because I was afraid for us. I was too scared to love someone else, one more cop I might lose. But then I was looking at that test, and I starting thinking that if it was positive, maybe it could work out between us, maybe he would come back, maybe I could be with him again. That we could…raise the baby…and grow old together. And everything would be perfect like it always was." Her cheeks drenched, Lily leaned further over the table, taking in the steam of her coffee again, soothing her leaking eyes and nose. "As young as I was, I wanted that test to be positive, so badly…"

"But it wasn't."

"No. It wasn't. And it's haunted me every day since."

Shane was quiet, thinking about all that was coming out between them, everything left unsaid over time, all of the years gone by without a phone call, without a letter, without seeing one another, or Lily and Jeff seeing each other. It was the cause of so much grief, the separation of minds, of love and care. And it was becoming more and more apparent with each conversation the girls had together on this trip, each word passed by lips was changing the past.

"My life has been completely determined by a missing plus sign. Everything is negative, nothing has ever once been positive. At least not for very long anyway…" Lily turned her head away when she heard a soft gurgling sound to her right, and with doused, wet eyes she looked off to see the face of an infant, bobbing up and down against its mother's shoulder from the back. She smiled at the beauty in it, the wide, toothless grin the little girl had on her face, gentle brown curls across the top of her head, and an outstretched hand and arm to where Lily was sitting. The baby was reaching out to her, and strangely enough, Lily too found herself extending a finger a ways, the mother and her company never taking a single notice of it. Shane watched as the baby grasped onto Lily's finger, and also, as Lily herself, sniffled away her first tears of joy since the night before, since coming back into the Sands' lives.

Making a goofy grin towards the baby, it laughed, and Lily drew her hand away to return to Shane again, a sip of coffee, a cough of determination to rid herself of all sadness.

"I wanted to sleep with your brother last night, Shane. I did. Sorry to freak you out."

"No...I know. He wanted it too I think."

"Something stopped me. I couldn't let him think that I was the same as I used to be, that…if we were together, everything would go back to the way it was."

"No, he needs to get to know you again. You both need to find out about each other."

"Yeah. I just wish I could believe it was going to be an easy thing to do."

Shane wiped her lip dry of excess coffee, and smiled with the notion she had first arrived with and held back on for Lily's emotions. Leaning across the table, she grinned, extended a hand and spoke. "Well, you can start with today. We have some CIA business to attend to...and you two are in my car." Lily giggled softly, wiping off her drying tears with the sleeve of her sweater, and tucking her hand into Shane's as she pulled her out of the restaurant and back to the room.

Neither of them ever noticed the company derived from the table behind. The man, who in question, had cried as much as the young woman who spoke of him. A man who without seeing the world, felt it, and the night before had tasted it for the first time in eight years.

* * *


	16. Easy Silence

**Easy Silence**

_En Route to Bucs Stadium – 11:35 am

* * *

_

There was Shane in the driver's seat. And then there was Lily and Sands, each at an opposite side of the back seat, noses to windows, one asleep, one trying to keep from crying anymore. Everything was quiet, save for the radio. Shane was busy talking to Carter and Andy from her phone, trying to discern the best route and search from inside of the Stadium once they arrived. The goal for the day: find hard evidence of drug sales between the coaches, the athletes, and Jimmy's posse. From the outside, it would appear that a psychologist and a blind man were useless for such a thing, but in fact they would be needed at a distance.

Lily had heard the plan from Shane, one she had also explained to Jeff earlier on. The two of them were set to stick to the car in the parking lot, with a direct line on headphones, much the same as the night before, Lily reading off the blueprints of the stadium, (coming from a responsible contracting source), and Jeff was there to do what he did best…change Shane's mind about all of her stupid ideas and keep her on a good track to survival. He was also there for the sole fact that he knew more about the logistics of football, stadiums, and the players than any of the rest of them. Facts he could retrieve without sight, making him the brains in the matter. Although at the moment, he was drooling aimlessly on the back window of the truck.

"Right here Carter, exit 23 A…"

"_This fucking GPS is trying to send me to Miami. Piece of shit!"_

"Ignore it; just make sure this is Dale Mabry when you pull off."

"_Alright."_

Lily could hear the arguing between line and receiver of Shane's conversation, and couldn't help but to laugh under her breath. For CIA agents, they really had an awkward way of getting things done. Of all four of them, Jeff seemed to have the most wits about him when involved in a case, proven by his help with her last night, and he after all had a preventative handicap in all of this. Moving her face away from the window, she rubbed her nose again with the sleeve of her 'fresh' sweater, and looked over to see him. His beat up old jacket still looked just as comfortable wrapped around him, and whether he remembered or not, Shane even too, Lily recalled many a night when she herself had been saved from northern winds by that same jacket. His hair was a complete mess, greasy, tangled, all over the place from the window to his neck. She could make out the silver band of his aviators from the side of his face, tucked away into sleep behind them. Much needed she imagined, as it was her fault he wasn't able to sleep much the night prior. Again, she continued to blame herself completely for his state of mind, his condition. There were of course other reasons, many in fact, especially Mexico, but until Jeff worked up the interest to confide all of this in her, she would blame herself only.

"Jeff!" Shane shouted from the front seat, trying to get him to wake up. "Jeff, come on…we're pulling in."

He grumbled like a child being awoken from a good dream, rubbing the tender skin over his eyes just beneath his glasses, and wiping off his drool corner to corner along his mouth. He was as dazed as he had been the night before, when Lily came to his room, seduced him, cried, nearly made love to him, and then jumped off the bed and scrambled into the second room. _Nearly_ as dazed, but not quite. Beside him, her breathing was still and peaceful, as it had been when they left the hotel. And Shane's voice was too pushy for him, but he finally responded. "What?"

"We're here, wake up. Lily…?"

She was lost in some sort of a strange haze, a recollection, a memory or two as she watched Jeff come about from sleep, watched his nose twitch, his hair fall in his eyes, watched him scratch his neck and stomach just the same. She hardly even heard Shane.

_Lily held onto the loose ends of the crème sheets, pulling slowly, exposing flesh, a hairy leg, a thigh, a…_

_She smiled with a bite of her lip as she watched Jeff squirm in the open air of the bed, his eyes twitching to wake, short waves of hair in his face. "Hmm…" he hummed, groaned almost as he finally opened his view up to the devil at the end of the bed, still pulling the sheets away in a reveal of his glory. "What…what are you doing?"_

_She smiled wickedly, "Just, taking in the landscape." _

"Earth to Dr. Hanson…?"

"Oh, what?" Started back to life, she heard Jeff snickering beside her and looked over to see him smoking out of the window.

"I was just saying that the blueprints are in the trunk. There's a cooler too, Carter packed you guys some stuff."

"A huh." She returned weakly, still focused on Jeff's lips as they curled around his cigarette, tightly, dragging out its poison, and then pushing it through his nose like a beautiful sin. "Okay…"

Shane looked back from the seat as she jumped out of the car, hooking her gun holster into place over her shoulders, pulling on her jacket, and then grabbing the walkie-talkie. She saw Lily's face, watching Jeff, and hardly paying a single bit of attention to anything else. Shane smiled, and said finally, "I'm on line 3. Carter and Andy are on two. Alright?"

"Yeah…"

"Shel, the taps are gonna be in corridor 6 and 8. And then at each of the main gates, you know where those are?"

"Yeah."

"Hopefully we can get in the locker room before practice at 3."

"You could always hide in the showers." He sneered with an evil grin to where he felt the chipped breeze coming in from her door.

"As entertaining as that would be for you…no thanks. We'll just get in there first, and worry about the gates last. Carter and Andy have the taps for Gruden's office."

"Oh boy…" he chuckled, another swift drag of smoke, "You actually trust them with that task?"

"Well, there's always option two."

"And what pray tell is that Obi One?"

"Lily can play seductress again. I'm sure she wouldn't mind spending some quality time on the coach's desk…huh, Hanson?" Shane looked back to Lily with a goofy grin, both waiting as Jeff breathed heavily against the idea.

A final puff of his smoke, and he tossed it out of the window. Trying not to make any hardened reveal of just what was in his head with Shane's suggestion, he simply replied.

"Send in the goons."

The girls nodded at one another with smiles, Shane helped Lily get situated with the prints, the laptop and headsets, and with a final whisk of approval and thanks, and she darted off to hop inside of the second truck with Carter and Andy. Moments later, the threesome was headed further in towards the stadium, laughing over the walkie-talkies and plotting. Jeff and Lily were silent, purely, cautiously, as best they could be.

Curling her legs underneath her on the seat, Lily adjusted back towards the window; headphones pouring Shane's voice into her head, Carter's dirtied mouth, and Andy's laughter. She focused on nothing in particular, a lonely orange leaf floating against the pavement of the parking lot, and at a distance, the gust blowing through the flags of the stadium's pirate ship. It was amazing to her, how such a place of fun, of entertainment, could be driven by a prostitution ring, a drug lord. This was where Jeff and Shane had been all this time, locked into a world of sin, trying their best to fight it without losing themselves. One seemed to have succeeded thus far, and the other, who sat silently as well, socked feet kicked up on the arm rest of the driver's seat so that they stretched towards her, was dozing off into sleep again, without a care left in the world. Trying not to pain attention to him, she resituated herself on the leather, tugging her sweater's hood down over her head, and kicking off her high heels. Her bare toes, slid across the seat, inches from his hip. Not on purpose of course, but he didn't mind either way.

There was humming a moment or two later, soft, ageless humming that followed the beat of the radio, turned down low. _Tiny Dancer. _Sheldon was lost aimlessly between Elton's voice and Lily's toes, the sound of scrunching leather under her body, the smell of her classic perfume mixing with a lingering cigarette draft. It felt so good, smelled, tasted even as it filled the air between their resting forms. He continued humming, adding a word or two as the lyrics strengthened, all as quietly as he could of course, sensing she was trying to sleep. When in fact, her eyes were as wide as his would be if he had them. She was fixed on him, curled as close as she could manage to his warmth without 'waking him', and just simply taking him in, privately, for the first time since she had gotten on that plane. Being a psychologist lent her the ability to read people, ever since she was a child she had prided herself in this skill, seeing through people, understanding them, knowing their life story before they opened their mouth. With Jeff, she was coming close, but still blockaded. Tearing down walls was all she wanted, all she was waiting for. Listening to him hum, she eventually saw his lips break further, breathe in, and heard his voice separate from the lyrics to speak to her.

"Your toes are cold." Teased by the randomness of his statement, Lily peered down from where she was laying, to see that her toes, cold indeed from the temperature outside of the car, were pushed into his hip. She immediately drew them back in a curl towards her. "Oh, sorry. Wasn't paying attention."

"Apology not accepted." He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his jacket, blew into them roughly with the heat from his mouth and felt around on the seat for a minute, Lily's brow furrowing at this. A moment later, his warm hands found her feet, freezing, and drew them back from her body as she grew anxious. "What are you doing?"

"Just sit still."

She did as she was told, leaning back against the opposite door as he pulled her feet onto his lap, gently massaging them with the warmth of his hands. It was strange watching him, the courtesy in his boyish ways, how she so remembered Jeffery Sands, in his romantic period of life. _Perhaps_, she thought, _he still had it in him_. After a minute or so of rubbing, his hands grew cold again and the music changed his humming, but he kept her feet resting silently on his lap, tapping them with his fingers as he leaned into the seat again, and she fell back into rest. "Hmm…hmm..hm hm hmm…" was all she could hear, her ears draining with him, a harmonic play along the lines of his sensual purr, a few lyrics spilling out. "Remember this one…when was that?"

"Hmm, what?" she replied in a melodious daze.

"The concert, Billy…Elton." There was no response, only a shift of her legs as her feet rested further in his hands. "Oh come on…you remember. You begged me to get those tickets for months."

"Yeah I do." She smiled, listening in on the music that seemed so far gone. "It was the summer of my freshman year…1994?"

"That's it!" he shouted emphatically from the pressure of thinking about it. "94'…"

"Piano Man, my dad loved this song."

"It's a good tune."

As he fell back into a hum, stroking at her feet haphazardly, she could feel her entire body growing warmer, with the mere touch of his hand. There were so many things rumbling in his head, all of the information he had gained over breakfast, without her knowing, without ever letting on he knew a single thing. It had changed him a great deal in the hours following. Where his plan upon waking up had been to give her the coldest of shoulders, and ignore her completely for the remainder of the trip, he had become soft at her tears, at her memories, and feelings, and the pain she indeed had fought at leaving him all those years ago. Lily was not heartless as he so many times tried to convince himself she was, she was scared, she had been frightened into nearly being pregnant, into being alone, and it tore away all of the dexterity, all of the tough skin he had to bind himself in. The only thing keeping him in check as his regular, deviant self, was the still unshed sting of what had happened in Mexico, the thing he swore she would never know. He didn't want her to know him that well, no matter the pills she could induce.

Restless again very quickly, she pulled her legs away from him and sat up in the seat on her knees, reaching back into the trunk of the Explorer for the supposed cooler. There was a mess of things surrounding it, and as she leaned further over the seat, her waist bent until her ass was completely in the air. She had to remind herself that the view was less than complimentary to someone without vision, and only continued grasping for the cooler, not wanting to have to get out in the cold air to fetch it. Jeff felt her body fall into his shoulder countless times in the act, her hip, her feet in his face, and grumbling a few times, he eventually laughed it off.

"What the fuck are you trying to do?"

Her voice, muffled with casual giggling, was distant in the piles of crap, but he could hear the gist enough. "The cooler…it's…too far…."

"Oh Jesus." He shook his head in her direction, finding his hands running the length of her legs, over her jeans, her ass, until he could take a stronghold at her waist where her body was falling over the back of the leather seat. His fingers found skin at the loopholes of her jeans, where her sweater was falling away from her hips, teasing him harshly, but he held strong and waited for her to finish the hunt.

Another second passed quickly as Lily managed to rip the lid off the cooler open with icy hands, and dig into its contents. "Beer." She stated, as if completely expecting such, and wiggled in his grasp as she felt herself falling, yelling to him on the way, "Want one?"

"Does an addict want drugs?" He crooned, pulling back on her waist as she grabbed hold of two bottles. With a yelp, she fell back over the seat, tiredly, into his lap. Her head nearly hit the window of the door, but was rescued by his hand, while the other held tightly to her legs. She looked up at him, a beer in each hand, and a strange smile on her face as she began laughing. "Sam Adams?" she giggled, lifting one to his face, where he could feel the coolness of it draining onto his skin in the hot air of the car.

Reaching out for the bottle, she tucked it into his palm and tried to sit up from his lap. He stopped her though, dropping his bottle to the seat, as well as her own. "How will I ever repay you?"

Lily grew nervous instantly, feeling his mental stare upon her, his hands increasing into heat upon her legs, her neck. She gulped once, and whispered, "No need." But he quickly intercepted her response, "Let me kiss you. For God's sake, don't keep this act running anymore. I can't take it anymore, Lily."

"Jeff…what…?"

"I can't see you, so I need to feel you. I just need…" he bent his head down further to her face in his lap, drawing her lips close to his, "…I gotta taste you again."

Trying to fight it, the way her brain said to, she moved to speak, "I don't think--" and of course, was cut off at the knees. Sands' mouth moved down to completely cover hers, the heat, the sting of his lips pressing into hers, taking in her breath for his own lungs' poison. Lily, shocked at first, eventually brought her hand to rest at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss, and he submitted. Shifting the weight of her from his lap onto the back seat completely, he fell atop her, one leg falling off the seat, and another crushed between her thighs, kneading her desperate root. She moaned into the kiss, causing him to stir even more energy into it, everything so natural, everything lighting his perpetual darkness. Without a moment's notice, he shoved his weight into hers, probing at her wet lips with his tongue, desiring only entrance at her will. She succumbed on impact, letting him swipe and savor every inch of her, from mouth to neck, ear to cheek. Everything that wasn't covered by her sweatshirt.

"We shouldn't…" she tried.

Following his cackling, "Then try to stop me…"

She didn't try, and instead let her hands wander up the back of his jacket, under his white t-shirt, as he drew himself down harder upon her. Every second passing he was learning more about her physicality, the small details that had altered. Her hair was shorter, shoulder length as opposed to the way it once dragged her back in endless curls. But it was still curly, soft, and tempting to his fingertips. There was a scar on the side of her neck, just below her right ear, he studied it with his tongue and reminded himself to inquire about it later. Her body felt smaller to him in places, and firmer, more curved in others in particular as he grasped at the front of her sweater. Lily sighed at his touch and moved her hand over his at her breasts, pushing it further down between them, until it rested at the end of her sweater, and Jeff was able to discern what she wanted. As his hand rose beneath the thick cotton, he smiled, feeling her differently than the night before, more relaxed in so many ways. Her skin was tender, warm from the covering, and smooth as he ran his hand upward to where he felt her bra, lace again, he loved her lace. Pushing underneath the boned material, he found her breast twitching for attention, a hardened peak already centered between his thumb and index finger as he cinched it gently. Gasping for air, she held him tighter to permit the action, and he went on, groping at the supple flesh, driving his tongue between her lips again for the moisture he so desired from her.

Lily began to wonder how it had happened this time. Just as quickly, as randomly and sporadic as the night before, just as unexpected in nature and not will. She wanted him, all of him, as badly as she could feel he wanted her, and it only drove the force of their bodies harder together. All of the things that she had told Shane that morning fluttered away, and the only thing left, was Shane's suggestion to her. _"He needs to get to know you again…you both need to find out about each other…" _It settled at the top of her brain as Jeff's tongue settled on her neck, licking, sucking away her sweetness while his fingers grew rougher around her breast. Lily tried to ignore Shane's idea, but found she simply couldn't, and without thought upon it, finally blurted out in exhaustion, "I was engaged!"

She immediately kicked herself in the ass, mentally. Sands stopped moving entirely upon her, his hand stopped on her breast, his tongue on her jaw, his hips at her thighs. Everything halted in time, as he tried to formulate meaning out of her confession. If he had been capable of seeing her eyes, he might have worried, but instead, as shameless a thing as it was for him to do to her, he laughed. Staying just as close to her body, he chuckled with burning breath onto her face, while she lay timidly under him. "Wow…"

She said nothing in turn. His laughing intensified.

"…you know it's going to take a hell of a lot more than that…to get me out of the mood now."

Wanting to laugh with him, she instead decided to fight it, defy him as was her intent in life. "I'm being serious, Jeff. I was engaged."

"So what's your point? We should not have sex because you are still hot and guys want to marry you? I think my balls are headed in a different direction with that one, sweets." He leaned down again, trying to coax her into his mouth, with his hand again in ministration on her breast and tongue at neck. But she pushed back on his stomach, and looked up at his growing annoyance.

"You're not listening to me."

"Yes I am…and I don't give a shit."

"Sounds like a deal breaker to me, Sheldon."

"Why?"

"Because if you don't care who I am…then how can we do this?"

He sighed, pushing back from her in the sense that he knew there would be no further acts, and found comfort in sitting across from her again, on her side of the car. Lily sat up as well, pushing down her sweater and pouting towards him with anger.

"You always have to make this so damn complicated."

"It is complicated."

"How the hell do you figure, Lily? Seems simple enough to me. Two people who want one thing…why should it matter that you were "yay-close" to getting married, or I slept with any woman I wanted to for eight years?"

Her jaw dropped fashionably at his words, brows catching into a fire together as she leaned over towards him. "This isn't just _sex_ to me."

"Oh…" he cooed, turning towards where he could feel her breath on his glasses, "then I guess now we know we disagree on that _little number_, what's next?"

She said nothing in disappointment and instead, grabbed her beer from the floor at his feet, her shoes, and the blueprints for Shane, and then pushed her weight through the seats to plop into the driver's chair. Jeff listened carefully to every movement she made, from his side, to the floor and all the way up front when he heard her hand pump against the horn. He didn't laugh, he just listened. Heard a twisting beer cap, a sniffle of her nose, and then, completely unexpectedly, felt his ears blast away with the jolting of the stereo being turned up to full blast. He tried to yell it off, but couldn't be heard past the slicing of electric guitars, drums, beats and rhythms too loud to comprehend at first. He screamed towards her, her name, insinuating remarks, all being calmly chuckled off from the front seat. The entire truck was rumbling with the vibration, shaking with his screaming, the pounding of his fist on the seat towards her. But it was the smile she saw on his face from where she was snuggled, that kept her from turning it down. He was turned on by it, he was learning about her, all over again. And her goal, was about to be achieved.

Twenty-nine years old. A doctor of psychology. And she was breaking down the walls of her first love's heart, her only love's heart, with a screeching Rod Stewart.

_**In the morning…don't say you love me…**_

_**Cause I'll only kick you out of the door.**_

_**I know your name is Rita…cause' your perfume's smellin' sweeter**_

_**Since when I saw you down on the floor.**_

As much as he hated to admit it to her, through the bellowing speakers, the crashing sounds of ecstasy, the smell of Chanel wafting through air and nostrils, her insistent screaming of the lyrics at him, he was aroused beyond much comparison. And when there was nothing left to do to convince her he was wrong for what he had said, that he hadn't meant she was just being used for sex like an aforementioned _Rita_…he found himself joining in plot.

Hank was in the trunk, waiting for him, and Lily was in the front, screaming at him. Since September of 1992, two had played this little game.

He pushed open the back door of the car, jumping down to cold pavement with only socks on, felt around the side of the truck for the back, ripped Hank from the trunk and then managed to come back inside without tripping. He slid against the seat, propping the guitar on his legs in relaxed fashion, facing towards the front where Lily's head had turned, and carefully began strumming, tuning, and then filtering into a full-fledged play of what the radio was giving him. He belted word for word as she laughed at him, the howl in his throat tempting her to kiss his flexing Adam's apple, wishing she hadn't even attempted to win this way.

_**You won't need too much persuadin'…**_

_**I don't mean to sound degradin',**_

_**But with a face like that, you got nothing to laugh about.**_

Giggling wildly, she found herself unable to hold back any longer, knowing that whether it was just sex, or whether it would become something else entirely, she had waited too many days, too many hours, and for that matter too many years to feel him again. She wanted the height she remembered with him, she wanted to scream his name to the sound of her past. And so pushing back on the seat, another accidental honk of the horn and Jeff laughing, she slowly crept into the back again, just between his legs where her body eventually fell victim to the strum of poor, old Hank.

_**Red lips, hair, and fingernails…**_

_**I hear you're a mean old Jezebel.**_

_**Let's go upstairs and read my tarot cards…come on!**_

Not seeing what she was doing made her coming back to him all the more enjoyable, as he grinned at the sensation of her hands sliding down his thighs, towards the one place that had been in pain more times over her name than he could count. She stroked gently over the tightened denim between his legs, bringing her lips down to fiercely suck at his jaw. He could nearly taste the beer from her own breath on his tongue as he inhaled deep, and drew his guitar away to fall onto the floor of the truck. At this, her entire body wiggled out of the front seat to drop down into his lap, her legs eventually wrapping around his waist as he held her to him. Lily had tried to get the best of him, and in the end, had saved herself from regret. And Jeff, had attempted to win over her wit with his own, and eventually, found himself lost to the candy of her lips, the blow of her fingers touch to his most sensitive of places. Childish, sexy, unforgettable. Forever in his mind, and hopefully, forever in his lap like this.

He pulled her body closer into his, settling his tongue under her own, licking and testing the waters for a third round. This time though, already felt right, in comparison. Things had never been easy with Lily, she was a fighter, smart, determined to get her way no matter the loss or pain to get there. It's what he had first admired about her, and it's what kept him trying to inch his way back for more. She was giving into him this time, her hand tucking inside of the front of his jeans, reaching down between loose cotton and soft hair to find that which she was interested in. He groaned into her neck with each short stroke she made to him, a thickening of blood, of release inside of him. Her thighs gripped firmer at his, while he began to lift away her sweatshirt. There was no time for the bra, for teasing, or arousal, they were well past such points. He needed to bury himself deep within her walls, rattle her, shatter her, rock the every roll of her hips, just as he remembered.

"I need you now…" he growled, moving her hand down to unfasten the button and zipper of his jeans, and lolled his head back with gritted teeth as she took a full hold of his erection and brought it out to settle between her legs. "Christ, I need you so bad Lily…"

"Calm down." She laughed anxiously as she moved to struggle with the buttons of her own jeans, "These might present a problem…let me get them off."

Unable to wait any longer, he reached down to assist, tugging at each button with force, even ripping one off of its stitchery, and biting his lower lip devilishly. She stood as best she could in the car and leg by leg removed them to the floor in a heap, her lace garments being all that was left. Reaching up to where he felt her waist, he tucked his thumbs into the stringed side of her panties, and much the same as the night before, stripped them away with a slide against her legs, keeping his mouth hot on the inside of her thigh as he did so. Realizing the uncomfortable position she was in, he leaned back and held her waist firmly, gliding her body back down to his, and holding the head of himself at her heated core. She breathed deep in his hold, and eased her body down upon him, the friction, the tightness he recalled all too well taking over him, leaving him in short gasps for air.

"Uh. Yes…" he panted loudly, smiling, chuckling as she took all of him within her, just as easily as ever before. Her head dropped to his shoulder as she wound her arms tighter at his neck, she breathed deeply, hummed the music in his ear as she gained better comfort in the position. Leaning back a ways, she ran her thumb gently over his lips, kissing quickly and then whispering, "You ready for this, Sparky?"

He grinned, and then interrupted by the stir of the walkie-talkie underneath his leg, a static filled response was made towards them, _"Ready for what?!"_

Giggling at Jeff's lips, Lily turned her face down to see the gadget's talk button shoved at the muscle in his upper thigh, leaving their act to be heard by all accompanying ears. Reaching down to remove it from its wedged position, Jeff caught her hand entirely out of sense and led it back to his neck. "Come on…let's entertain the poor bastards."

"My god…you are sick." At this mention, he bucked his hips roughly towards her, into her, and she yelped with shock and laughter all the same. "Never gonna change, Tiger Lily." Her mind fell into the past as the devil in him protruded from lips to fingertips.

"_Don't you dare change on me, Sheldon. I might not hate you when you do…but it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to get me to stay."_

_**Stay with me…**_

_**Stay with me…**_

_**For tonight you better stay with me.**_

Digging her fingernails into his back, she challenged his movement with her own hips, grinding down against him, leaving his face contorted of all relief, only stress, desperation, bliss. The intercom of the walkie-talkie continued blaring with questions, shouts, begging throughout the still blaring music.

"What are you two doing in there?" Shane shouted out, amused.

"Hundred bucks says they're fucking." Andy answered her from his own speaker with pleasured chuckling. And Carter, stopped dead in his tracks somewhere between Gate 6 and 7 of the Stadium, screeched out in an echo, "No! Jeff, you fucker…that car is on my credit card!"

Carter's worries only worked to increase the speed, the agility and determination in their movements together. Lily moaned into his body as he dug further within her, pulling her hips to and from him, up and down against the throbbing pressure of his length, needing to feel every bit of resistance their bodies held together, needing to break down the mold of what he had once created.

Dipping himself between the walls of her being, he felt the strained, pulsating center of her, the origin of all weakness deep within her body, and managed to touch down into that spot stroke after stroke, thrust upon breathless thrust. Lily fell into his body with minimal strength left, forgetting just how good, how quick he actually was at this, and he took to holding her closer to him, continuing the work himself, pumping harder, faster, grunting against the changing music so that anyone willing to listen, could hear his distress.

"Jeff…please…Oh God…" she begged, leaning into his chest, her nails nearly cutting through the skin of his neck, his hair wet with the combination of cold outside and heat inside the car. Her body was growing limp as he groaned in her ear, "Shit…I'm almost…Lily…I'm gonna…"

"Don't even think about it, fucker!" Carter yelled once more from beneath them. "That shit will never come out of leather!"

Reaching a boiling point he had waited for, she had waited for, they were forced into a quickened end pace with the shouting and laughing nestled at his thigh bone, the music filling their heads. Sands felt Lily's body tighten down around him, cinching at the trappings within, bringing him to a point of release, as she herself gave way to one final scream. The tip of his solid being grazed over her sweetest spot once more, a throb, a hum, a clenching hold on his body like nothing else in this world, and Lily covered him with her sizzling juices, pulse by sexy pulse against him. Jeff, well aware of his own need to let loose, dug his socks further into the carpet, his hands held her right where he needed her body, spent and hovering at his weakest spot, he dug in once more with a violent, exploding thrust, and found himself leaking quickly inside of her. The way he needed it.

"Fuck yes…" He shouted into the open air over her head, his glasses tilting off of his nose with ecstasy, excitement. His body was tingling within her, the still throbbing desire of her resting quietly against him, breath trickling down his neck, his chest. Even in the darkness, he saw light.

The easy, timid silence had been broken. And within its breaking point, relief, understanding, an acceptance had been found. Jeff had found what he needed, while giving Lily everything she required and more. Even Carter's hesitance in stains could not have brought them down from the natural necessity.

Lily smiled into his neck, breathing in the sweat, the burn of him, as she slowly began moving away from him to get dressed again. But he stopped her, holding her head to his shoulder still and her legs to his waist, just wanting to keep feeling everything he couldn't let go of yet. Nothing had to be said, the laughter, the calm beating of their noisy, crazy hearts was enough for now.

An hour passed quickly. Dressed warmly again, Lily had moved into the front seat so Jeff could stretch out and sleep. She managed to help Shane, Carter and Andy entirely on her own, with only one mistake in reading the blueprints. Most of the time she spoke with them, although they pretended nothing had taken place between her and Jeff, there was a great deal of unspoken humor. She appreciated this, especially as she turned in the seat, numerous times, just to stare over his peaceful form, his chest rising and falling in REM, his socks, his messy hair pulled away from his face so that she could see his cheeks, his twitching brow, the glasses that forever covered his eyes. It took her to another place entirely. Another time as well.

She watched him without a single intent in prescribing him drugs, or "fixing" him. She hadn't seen him so at peace, so calm since meeting him again. He was constantly wired, always edgy, and never trusting. This had changed now. In her mind, in her normal, average, 'Chatham Bay-girl' mind, Jeff just needed someone to care for him.

No pills, no ink blots, just honest interest and care.


	17. We Never Change

**We Never Change**

Hard Rock Hotel – _5:55 pm

* * *

_

"Pizza man, order a shitload of it. Charge it to the bill."

"Anything?"

"Jesus Fruit Loop, yes. _Anything_…" Carter rolled his eyes as he kicked his boots across the room, tossed his jacket to the bed, and fell onto it, exhausted. Shane crossed the room as well, heading straight for where the guys' had their '_spy camp' _hooked up to the big screen TV. Crunches of chips under her boots made her growl with disgust, but she situated herself with a headset, and began recording everything she heard, no matter its value.

"Uhh…three pizzas please."

"Cheese!" Shane yelled from the couch.

"Pepperoni!" Carter shouted from the bed next to Andy.

"Yes, okay. Cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. Also, we'll need three cases of…" he stopped, turning to Carter with a wiry grin, "what kind of beer, man?" he whispered with his hand over the receiver.

"Bud."

"Three cases of Bud."

"Get ice cream…" Shane induced with a smile, "Every flavor they have."

"Uhh alright, we'll need a pint of every ice cream flavor you have." He stopped to listen to the woman in guest services and with a chuckle, replied so that Shane could hear him, "Yes ma'am…_all…12…flavors_." He went on with the order, getting just about everything they had to offer in either a can, a pint, or a bag and simply stated that it would be billed to their tab. The agency's tab. The one that would eventually slide across Jack's desk. Not that they really cared anyway, risking their lives was completely deserving of excess nutrition.

Still a good five minutes from the room, just getting off of the elevator at the long end of the hallway's stretch, Lily kept Jeff balanced with her arm, walking slowly, steadying his tired weight step by gentle step. He hadn't spoken very much, except to comment on the noise in the Lobby, the crappy 70's disco music in the elevator, and now the carpeting.

"Why's it so damn puffy?"

She laughed at his randomness in sleep deprivation, holding his arm higher. "I don't know. Maybe their trying to get your attention."

"Well shit…it worked." He grinned past the wincing pain growing in his leg, the pain that didn't ever start to bother him until about midway through each day. Especially when he forgot his pills. Lily noticed him limping on the leg opposite her, and looked at him with concern before speaking.

"Is your leg hurting you?"

"No." He groaned as he applied further pressure to it, leaning against her more and more as they came nearer to the rooms. "Its fine, just need to lie down."

"You sure, I could get you a--"

"Lily." He stopped her abruptly, pulling back from her walking. Just two doors away from the guys' room. She moved her gaze up to his face, stricken with pain, but more dissatisfied by her persistence than anything else.

"Jeff, I'm sorry I just think--"

"Stop." It wasn't mean sounding like he had been with her the day before over the subject. This time it was just passive, as if he had no choice but to be in pain and she had no choice but to accept it. "I've been in way more pain than this stupid leg is capable of. I swear it."

"Alright." She replied simply, holding his hand as she walked him to the next doorway, and placed it upon the doorknob. He thought it an odd motion, and turned his face back towards where he felt her stare, a concerned brow, and tight lips.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I don't think so. I'm going to take a nap next door."

Taking the opportunity as it came to him; he grinned tiredly but with sinful pretense, and leaned down to where he had already determined her lips would be, kissing her lightly at the corner of her mouth as she smiled. "Care for company?"

Her heart said _"Yes, please come back to my room. Make love to me without anyone around and hold me until we wake up a century from now."_ But her head, the side that generally won when she was tired, said simply, _"No. I need my space. I need to think."_

Rather than coming onto him this harshly though, she simply leaned up to his cheek, kept her lips fixed there warmly for moments, a handful of them in fact, breathing him in, and kissed the spot. When she pulled away, she smiled at his ease of depression, the saddened mode he had so quickly fallen into. "See you later?"

"Sure." He stated flatly, pushing open the door to his room as he heard her scamper off to the next doorway, sliding the key with a beep, and then softly whispering back to him, "Get some rest, Shel." And then she was gone, and the door clicked against the wall of the suite, leaving him to the entertainment of his drunken co-workers. People only half as interesting as she was in sleep.

* * *

**Jeff's apartment – Boston**

**_January 1__st__, 1995

* * *

_**

"_Read it to me again." _

"_Again…why?" _

_She leaned into his back, sitting with her own to the warm fireplace. "I like when you read that one. Please…just one more time." _

"_God you're trying to turn me into such a sap…"_

_Stretching his legs out further across the rug of the living room, he relaxed comfortably in her arms, the fire on his bare shoulders warming all of him as he watched the snow beat down on the windows. "One more time." He smiled, more than glad to have left the party early and spent the night at home. Pulling the small book back into his hands from the coffee table, he rustled with pages, and eventually began reading as her hands gripped more to his stomach from behind._

"_I speak of love that comes to mind: The moon is faithful, although blind… She moves in thought, she cannot speak. Perfect care has made her bleak…__.__" He paused for a careful moment, to cover her hands with his own as he held the book high with the other and continued. "I never dreamed the sea so deep…The earth so dark; so long my sleep. I have become another child…I wake to see the world go wild."_

_Lily tightened her grasp, kissed his bare shoulder twice at each blade, and then carefully moved in to settle in his lap, a sheet holding her warm still. Her arms around his neck, his hands tucked around her legs, they were some pair indeed. A couple of renegades, wandering through the short world around them, in search of anything beautiful, anything fun to live upon. They were above all else young, which left their hearts open and potentially wounded to life. But they knew they could fight it, at least for a little while longer. _

"_What do you want for your birthday?" he whispered gently against her ear as he rocked her body in his lap, moving at the snow falls' pace. _

"_I don't know." She sighed, falling off into sleep. _

_He said nothing more on the subject; he didn't need to push the answer. He already had it. _

_Kissing the top of her head, he counted the final snowflakes as they fell to the windowsill, whispering to her dreams only, "Happy New Year, baby…"

* * *

_

**_8:25 PM

* * *

_**

Lily's eyes were being pried by both frigid alertness, and the ring of a phone. Neither of which were immediately welcomed, but eventually, sliding through the cold cotton sheets, still wearing her jeans and heels from earlier, she grabbed hold of the phone and whispered into it.

"Hello?" Nothing was given as response, so she coughed back her sleep and rubbed her eyes. "Hello…?"

"Lily."

"Jeff?"

"Yeah, hey did I wake you up?"

"Oh…" she tried, squinting across to see the alarm clock from the table, and then coughing again. "…no, it's fine. What's up, do you guys need me next door?"

"No, the fucktards have it well under control."

She laughed, hearing the formation of renewed innocence in his voice, of humor.

"Ok, well did you need something?"

"Yeah. I did…"

* * *

**Hotel Lobby Bar – 9:15**

* * *

"Can I get you folks some drinks?"

Jeff sat with a crooked grin on his face, slumped into the lounge chair opposite from where he heard Lily's heel tapping on the tiled floor. He waited for her to proceed.

"Just a bay breeze, please." She smiled at the waitress, and then turned over to look at Jeff, sitting with a satisfied expression, one she could hardly control herself under. "Jeff?"

"Uh, tequila."

"Tequila and…" she tried.

"Lime." The girl nodded to both of them, never having realized the impairment of the one, and turned away to fill the order at the bar. Lily sat still, tapping the heel of her blue shoe as Sands waited in silence, simply capturing the moment for himself. Her drink order, her damned perfume, her voice. Until finally, he forced himself to speak up.

"How was your nap?"

The question was blatant sounding, but with a short hint of sincerity, of care.

"Good."

"Just _good_?"

"Yeah…" she tested him for more, and watched as he leaned forward in the cushioned seat coming at her. He was quiet, but when their knees came to eventually graze each other's in the open space, she noticed his hands reaching out gently, his long fingers, grown longer since the last time she remembered, begging for her legs as he brought them to rest on her knees.

"I wonder why it wasn't….a _great_ nap." His hands slid further, beneath the light cotton of her sundress, tickling her skin, warming her skin with every inch his fingertips gained on her thighs. Catching her breath in a deep trap within her lungs, Lily sat waiting for some sort of embarrassment, and at the same time praying he wouldn't stop. They were cornered off into a private section of the lobby, just beyond where the bar was, and few people could see or notice them. Not that Jeff would care anyway, she knew him too well to think he would.

"Maybe if I had been there…" he grinned, bringing his lips down to her jaw as his hands curled around her inner thighs more beneath the fabric, kissing lightly at her chin, her neck, "I could have made it a _great_ nap." Shivering at his words, she bit her lip and tried to think of something else, or search for any sign of the waitress with their drinks. Jeff was making her nervous, something he did so well and always had, but he was also scaring her, because only that same morning, he had been giving her the silent treatment. Things had been so back and forth, up and down since they'd met again, that now, in the most fantastical of ways, the way she dreamed he would touch her again, she had to put a temporary halt on it. Her hands went down to cover his over the skirt, and pull away just as the waitress arrived with two glasses.

Sands frowned slightly as he pulled away and back into his seat, taking with him the shot of tequila he had heard hit the table to his side. He downed it quickly, not caring about the immediate response it showed to her rejection, and then lifted it up over his head to where he knew the waitress was still standing, and asked for another. He never touched the lime.

As soon as the girl ran off with his shot glass again, he perked up to kick his boots further out in front of him, trying to keep a rhythmic center on Lily's silence. Eventually finding himself out of entertainment, he knew he only wanted to touch her; he couldn't _not_ touch her now. Her skin had somehow burned a whole in his wall, the one he had built for her slowly over eight years. She had come and kicked it down with her heels, her legs, her breasts and breath.

"Tell me about this fiancé of yours."

She looked up from the straw in her glass, eyes wide with the memory of what she had admitted to him in the car earlier, and her heart pounding out of sync.

"Why?"

"Can't a guy just be curious?"

"Not you." She retorted, knowing the kind of argument that was arising. It was one of theirs, a quick one, a painful, jabbing one.

"I think I deserve to know as much as the next one."

"Well I don't. In fact…" she began, sliding out further to come near to his chair with a hushed defiance, "I think it's about time you start answering some stuff for me. I'm still your doctor remember?"

"I already told you I don't need a goddamn doctor." His voice was heightened, near to being crude with her now.

"Yes you do. You need to talk about what happened down there."

"Fuck that." He growled, slumping back into the chair. She knew he was mad at the suggestion of any sort of medical care, she knew he didn't think he had an issue, but Lily saw directly through every crevice of his being, she saw into him. There was a blackness deep in there she knew she had to get out.

"It's just going to keep haunting you, until you give someone a chance to listen." Sliding back with her drink, she eyed him as the girl came with his second shot, and placed it down on the table. He didn't reach for it, only bit his lower lip and pulled out a cigarette to place between them. Licking its tapered edge a few times, he eventually lit it and drew back a starch drag of kohl smoke. He was thinking about it, seriously, about letting her into his world, into his head. It would be a first for anyone since her, and maybe it would be Lily who could finally clean out the mess up there. Maybe.

Yet in a flash, he had a better idea. He was ready to play her game as always.

"You think so huh?" He finally questioned under his breath, exhausting more cigarette smoke as she looked back toward him. Only half understanding him, she licked the tart wetness from her lips and sat her glass down.

"Yeah. I think you're too afraid to talk. I think you wouldn't do it if your life depended upon it. Which according to your sister…it usually does Jeff."

He was scowling, but with a heartened smile at her offer, at her strike against him, because he had one for her too.

"Great observations, Doctor Hanson."

"All in a day's work." Sarcastically she took to her drink again, confident she had challenged him well. But he finished off his cigarette, and with a final blow of smoke to her face, he reached across the small table, feeling for the ashtray he eventually found.

"Well, I might not have some fancy fucking Harvard degree, or a healing couch or whatever the hell you use…" he poked fun while sitting up and facing her again. "But, would you like to know what I think?"

Hesitant, but unable to stand against the sound of his voice, she said yes and watched as he came close for a second try. This time though, she didn't move her hands in haste of him, or push back, she only sat with her drink settled on her lap, as he drew his hands in, blindly caressing her shins, her knees, and bringing her body between both of his thighs. Lily felt her knees graze the hardened center of his jeans, pressing in as he brought his entire chair closer to her, his mouth towards her, his breath hot on her neck. Quietly he whispered to, "Close your eyes."

Here she hesitated, but he shook her head and implied once more, waiting for her eyes to close. Once they were, he lifted the condensing glass from her hands and sat it on the floor, unable to find the table this time. He brought his hands down to settle at her hips, holding her close to him, his scent intoxicating, his breath drenched in his every sin, his fingers against the thin material of her dress, drove her crazy from the inside out. And it was a moment later, as she drew her last full breath, that he came to settle his mouth just at her ear, past the messy curls that had formed in her nap, her eyes still sewn shut.

"You're scared, Lily Hanson. You're scared shitless of me." As he began to speak, everything was lost, there was no hotel lobby, there was no bar, no world. Just Jeff's voice at her ear, and her knees shaking against his thighs. "You've been trying so hard to look past my missing eyes…that it's finally caught up with you. You can see I never really changed. I might be more of bastard now, or more pissed on a regular basis but…I think I've earned that much."

She sighed with tears curling up under her eyelashes as she settled her chin down on his shoulder, his voice continuing thickly.

"You wanted me to be different, because you didn't want to go back…I'm not stupid. Blind yes, but not a dumbass." Grabbing her thighs tighter into him, he groaned into her ear, "I remember that morning that you begged me, you swore you'd kick my ass if I changed at all on you. You remember that?"

She nodded against his shoulder, hands shaking on his lap.

"Well I didn't, and you know it. You're just too afraid to get close to me, knowing that. You know how I know that?" He appeared to be talking in circles, and yet she understood every word, and when she didn't respond to him, he only went on. "I know that…because believe it or not, even though I don't talk about it every fucking minute of the day…I'm just as scared of you." At this, she cried, Lily fell into him further, her eyes wetting the sleeve of his shirt as he held her whispering gently.

"Shit happened to me down there, Lily. Things that broke me a little bit more than before. Ignoring them was my pill. And then…you came out of nowhere, like a slap in the face." He heard her slightly laugh between sobs at this, and lightly kissed her ear before finishing his claim. "I think you want this, you want me _bad…so bad. _And I think if I don't have you now, again tonight…that'll I'll probably never trust myself with anyone else again. I want to tell you things Lily…things that no one else can know. You showed me you wanted me already today…but I need you to _need_ me, as badly…as badly as you _want_ me."

He held his lips to her warm neck, breathing her in as he heard the lobby crowd deepen, heighten again as they both floated back to reality and filled another empty space in time. Another kiss at her neck and he pulled away from her, still holding her thighs, and wishing only to have been able to see her face, the tears he heard but couldn't watch. Taking both of her hands from his lap, he twisted his own fingers into them, squeezing tightly out of historic practice. Still the right fit.

Lily looked up at him, seeing nothing but blank sincerity, grief in admittance, and something that looked rather familiar to her. He never said love. He never said that word, but with a final sigh, a brush of her teary cheeks on the sleeve of her sweater, she gave in warmly, and spoke just the thing that was on his mind already.

"Can we get a room?"


	18. It Got Me Here

**It Got Me Here**

12th floor private suite – _10:18 pm

* * *

_

Setting foot inside of the room, Lily's eyes gazed in a rush of a million different emotions, most importantly relief. She'd made it up 12 floors with only smiles and laughter, his hand wrapped snugly around hers as she had led them towards the room he'd charged to his assumed agency credit in an instant. It wasn't as if she was sixteen again, she knew what to expect, she knew why they were walking inside and why they needed a suite to themselves. And Jeff had been entirely too right, she did want this, and whether he knew it yet or not, by the end of the night she wanted him to understand just how much she needed it too, how her body would never be the same again without his, the way it had been that morning.

He inched his way across the carpet without her hand, reaching out for chairs, tables, and eventually the bed. Laughing as she watched him, she set her purse down and kicked off her heels to feel the soft floor. Everything was playing out like a movie, slow motion in certain places, black and white in others, enigmatic color again in more. Sheldon was lounging on the mattress, his boots dangling off and head coaxed back from his elbows. She wanted to jump right on top of him and let him take her wherever he so desired, but she stopped herself and instead walked over delicately and sat down on the edge.

"The room is nice." She said, trying to fill the silence.

"What color are the curtains?" He returned with a chuckle as she gazed over and assisted him.

"They're green."

"And the sheets?"

"Blue."

Satisfied enough, he sat up to where she was, leaning into the heat her body was already emitting, and let his hand slide across the bed to her legs, and then between both of her thighs and back under her dress. Lily felt his fingers move slightly over her center, stroking at the thin lace panties she wore.

"What color are…_these_?" He grunted into her ear as he bit it, and forced his fingers harder on her covered but moist spot. Her breath was officially gone at this, and her answer given in mute sighs.

"I…don't…remember."

"Oh." He spoke, coaxing her body back until it hit the mattress and his own fell to drape hers. "I guess it won't matter…" kissing along her neck and open chest as he dug into her heat, "…once they hit the floor."

Gasping against the grind of his hips into her, his hand between her legs, and his tongue at her neck, she tried to hold focus; she tried to hold the floodgates of everything in her as she stared up at the ceiling. Jeff was capable of bringing out sensations in her that no man since had done, and certainly no high school boyfriends before him. It was the danger in his spirit that had drawn her to him the first time, and now, it was the soft side of danger he held, the disrespected, saddened danger in his fingers, his body, that made her want to reach out to him, and allow him any and all access he required.

A moment later, he captured her mouth against his, swirling his tongue down between her lips without warning, and pulling her body closer and deeper into his sanctum. Every melt his legs and hips made into hers drove her even madder with desperation, the need to feel him somewhere few had gone, and only he had broken. She begged him with clinging breath, with her fingers digging into his shoulders, and when he pulled back from her mouth, he swore he heard her every thought, her every emotion without ever _actually_ hearing or seeing her. It confused him, it drew him into her more and not wanting to be so over bearing or forceful, he knew there was something he'd needed for too long, from any woman and especially her. Sands fell back to the bed next to her, and relaxed as she came up to rest on his chest.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just…"

"What?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

Lily smirked, almost half knowing what it was, but waited for his show of desperation, as his hand came up to cover hers, and slid it down his chest, lower stomach, until it came to rest on the protruding bulge at the inner thigh of his jeans. He said nothing more about it, and when she caught his face tumble back away in almost reluctant shame, she smirked sadly and massaged him where he needed it most.

"Jeff?"

"Huh."

In her heart she knew he had struggled with the adjustment of being blind, and this, more or less had no spare time for sex incorporated into it. Not to mention the fact that she doubted it was an easy thing to do, hit on chicks at bar, when you could barely see to walk. It broke her as she spoke, "How long has it been since before…" a sigh from his lips as she finished, "Since before this morning…with me?"

He took a moment to answer, to think about answering her, to think about embarrassing himself. And then instead, realized that it wouldn't matter either way to Lily, she would just as well enjoy knowing how long he hadn't had sex than how long he had. So he answered her, "Four months."

An average amount of time for someone, anyone other than Jeff. Not from what she'd learned about him in the Agency, with the guys, with Shane. He had been desperate for four months if anything else and she could feel it under her fingertips as she soothed over his tight denim with a smile.

"I thought you said you didn't need my help?"

Growling at her, he tried to pull away, feeling and sensing another argument arising in him, "Forget it." She caught his legs though as he twisted from her, and held his body on the bed where it was, hands on his hips, face near everything else.

"No. I want to."

Without response from his lips, she took her cue and reached up to slowly unbutton his jeans, tug at the zipper, and loosen his tucked black t-shirt from them. Lily moved her lips down to the shadowed line of hair that outlined his abdomen, from navel to the place of interest, and kissed once for practically every black hair she found as she tucked her hand inside of his boxers, searching out what he needed help with. Sands body fell to an insane mode of tingling, of shivering under her as he felt his entire length rest in her palm and come into the open air of the room. Even in darkness he felt the sensitivity of his pleading organ in her hands, near her lips, as he felt her come down to the tender head of him, and kiss lightly. His teeth clenched, his feet dug into the boarded end of the bed, toes crackling with his breathing. Lily smiled once before drowning him in her mouth, inching against the thick, elongated heat, the pressured need in him inside of her. Jeff felt himself swallowed by ecstasy, by something that had been a long time coming, and he gulped once with a buck of his hips gently towards her.

Trying to apologize, she released him from her lips in concern, and placed her hand on his stomach as he breathed remorse. "Sorry."

"Don't worry, I promise I'm better at this now." He grinned at her voice, and felt her lips again take over his dripping ache, consuming him as he did her mouth. She drew him in and out, a swirl of her tongue against the underside of him, as she held the fluid filled sacs for a forced wait. He was driven crazy with her mouth, her lips, tongue, everything down upon him in ways no woman had been in a while, and in ways he had only dreamed she could ever be again. Her mouth was hotter here than in his head, it was softer, it was better at this than it had been in his dreams, she was right, and he relaxed into her mode as he groaned slightly into the sheets.

Lily couldn't help but watch him in the action, the effect she had on him, the things she was still capable of bringing out, the innocence of being so vulnerable in her hands. And as she felt him tense even greater between her lips, she stroked a few more times with her tongue, listened to him moan, "Lil…shit…please…," but never gave into his begging. Instead, she tightened her hold with a careful kneading and eased him out of her mouth. "What are you…fuck…" he grunted, as she eased him down with her hips around his, a quick tug of her panties down her legs, and then rolled him on top of her as she felt his peaked head drip at her opening.

"Your turn." She smiled and kissed his forehead, moaning deeply a moment later as he took the cue, lifted her dress away from her thighs, and pushed hard into her. Still almost fully clothed, they didn't seem to care, or mind, or worry about it one bit. The sensation of him thrusting inside of her, grazing her receptive walls, holding his hands under her head of curls to gain a better hold of his quick pace, was all enough to send any man into a breaking point. Lily ran her hands up his shirt, his back, forcing him down into her until there was nowhere left to go, and she took a breath with him.

"I think…" he sighed with a wiry smile, kissing her passionately once, "You're getting better than me now, kid."

"Scare ya?" she retorted with a giggle.

"Yeah. But it feels so damn good…," he grunted, as he pulled out of her body slowly, and then thrust back down roughly, "…that I don't even care." A kiss on her forehead, and he repeated the motion.

At a loss, she held tightly to his back, to the sheets beside her, to anything that would hold her body over the edge of the dangerous canyon that he was pushing her into. He was rough, but passionate, brutal, but warm all the same, and with each new thrust, each renewed wave of hunger, she felt even more of him than she had earlier in the car. It was as if that had been nothing but child's play, an innocent act done under surveillance, under parent's watch, trying to prove their maturity to one another. And this, this was a craze of obsession as it heightened with his hips and the grind they made into her body, with his lips, his tongue, blindly mapping out the familiar line of her jaw, her breasts as they fell from her sleeveless dress, into his mouth, the places he could feel inside of her, different than they had been in the car. Every time they were together it was different, in ways that only the same thing can be. For while they didn't change individually, together they were growing. He saw this. She saw this.

"Sheldon…" she whispered, strangely, exotic in nature as her hips forced down upon him with a final plea, a final rush. He grunted in response, forcing himself into her again, and breaking down her release, covering himself in her heat, her moisture as she screamed his name, all the things he loved, all the things he knew he needed. And drawing back once more, a twinkling smile of sincere wickedness, he groped her hips with fixation, and pushed down into her with his own trickling discharge. He filled her body with his longing seed, relaxing into her and away with only sighs.

_It's amazing what I let my heart go through  
To get me where it got me  
In this moment here with you

* * *

_

**Chatham Bay - _July 4th, 1995_**

* * *

_Her toes rose upon his as he dragged her weight along in the cold sand, hand at her waist, hand locked in her own. Dancing was not his forte, but somehow Lily had insisted he try again and again, until eventually he was better with harmony than he was with merely walking along the street. There had been a picnic in the park earlier in the day, a carnival, a baseball game, all things they had enjoyed gladly with smiles and conversation, friendly banter while keeping their fingers tightly bound together. They had one more night together before Jeff had to leave for a Washington briefing, concerning a case that had her own brother bound along with him to its tight clutch. It was their first major handling together, one that kept Boston's police force under seclusion, under chains and veils for every bit of protection they could muster. It was a job that Lily and her mom had begged them not to take, and to which they insisted it would be their break into the agency if they did it right. Tulza would be no match for Sands and Hanson, so they pressed on. _

_He breathed darkly into her hair as they spun about in the empty sand, the open air of the audience free beach. The only music was twenty yards down the shore, distant and humming into the waves that surrounded them. But they made their own, as was ever their drill in moments like these. There was very little left to say, and what wasn't spoken aloud, soaked through the breast of his white t-shirt as she cried against him. He had waited all day for these tears, had prevented them until now, but knew it was too little too late at this point. Crying was Lily's way, and he respected her for it. She was the only person who had ever cried over him. _

"_What are you thinking about?" He asked softly, kissing the top of her wind-blown hair. _

_A sniffle of relief came at the broken silence and she pushed her face harder into him. _

"_Things."_

"_Interesting things by any chance?"_

"_Just things Jeff." Her voice was cold, as if she were prematurely distancing herself from him. When he caught this, he held her waist tighter, also hearing a slight rumble in the sky over the bay. _

"_Well make them good things then…" _

_She felt as if she were drowning, the more he put off the inevitable, the more he tried to sway her into believing it wouldn't be the end, it wouldn't be dangerous. Unable to contain herself, her arms wrapped around his neck as hard as she could manage, her toes lifting off of his bare feet as he held her against him, her breath in his ear. "Don't get yourself killed, Sheldon. Please." New tears formed as she choked on the words, and he stiffened in her hold. "You have to swear…that you won't do anything stupid. I won't survive without you or Tommy. This isn't just some convenient store bust…"_

"_I know that." He whispered back, planting her feet on the sand again. "I'm ready for this, Lily."_

_She nodded in understanding with more questions filtering to the tip of her tongue, "And you can't call me."_

"_Yes I can, and I will." His finger drew her face back to his, "I'll call you every free chance I get."_

"_And Christmas? Can you both come home for Christmas?"_

"_I don't know." Again her face fell away in sadness. Jeff coughed back the angst growing in the pit of his stomach, and bent his face down to where hers was hiding away in the night. "But I'm going to do my damndest to be here. Okay?"_

_A shaking nod of her head was response._

_He gripped her shoulders as the thunder gained strength overhead. "I'm coming back, I promise. Nothing's going to happen Lily, I'm tough, Tommy's tough we can handle it." She said nothing, and he shook her warmly with force, "Do you hear me?" Her eyes darted up with his violent conclusion. "Everything is going to be fine. Nothing will change." _

_A solid tear ran down against her cheek as the predicted rain fell along the sand at their feet. Looking up to him, she felt her knees wobble with mock uncertainty in his words, and he felt his own heart give out in a forced expression of absoluteness. Lily didn't smile; she didn't nod her head or touch his face. She spoke with as much silence, as much concern as the rain, "Thing's have already started to change, Jeff."

* * *

_

It was a dream, not the first like it, and certainly not the last. Lily's eyes shifted from the darkness of her own mind, to the darkness of the room as she heard the rain filter from her sleep into her conscious, present state. Curled in the warmth of expensive sheets, she stretched her legs out to pulled the rigged muscles, toes touching the baseboard of the bed. She yawned, smiled out of renewed habit, and brushed the hair out of her face further to take in her surroundings. The mattress was empty save for a few scattered pillows, a discarded shirt. Music was still playing throughout the space, rain coming down from the open doors of the balcony, and two pair feet, the ones that were missing from the bed beside her, were hanging out over the end of a patio chair.

Sitting up, she wrapped the clinging sheet further around her now exposed body, smiling again, and standing to walk. This though was immediately determined as near to impossible, her thighs, calves, everything numb and tingling with each step. Careful not to trip over her own lack of nutrition, over her own weak form, she step towards the wide sliding doors, holding the curtain of her way as she stepped down to the balcony. Rain carried off the roof in sparkling icicles, ten feet away from the dry place where she saw Jeff lounging in the chair, his guitar propped on his lifeless legs and lap. Sleep deprivation had obviously won out on his mode of relaxation, and this made her laugh as she stepped closer.

Shaking her head, she took the guitar from his hands as he stirred against the movement. This though was not managed easily, when his hand came up to take her wrist and another reached out to pull her body into his on the chair. She yelped at the startled move, but fell into the crook of his waist and lap, smiling as he held her tight, the guitar settled on her own legs.

"I was planning on playing that still." He replied with a mock grin.

A giggle held her lips in curve up to him, "Oh well excuse me…"

He held his own smile as he drew her closer to him, her legs eventually jetting out to relax between his as she fell snug into his lap with the instrument strumming lightly under her fingers. His arm draped over her chest was memorable, a place where it had so often seemed to fall, a protective place for Jeff. He took a thick inhalation of her hair as he kissed her head, romantically, a way he hadn't managed to bring himself to in too long a time span. There was no need for romance in the world he'd lost himself in, the world of dangerous bets and costly avenues of success. Romance killed more often that tobacco and guns in Sands' world.

"I think you've permanently shattered my pelvis tonight." She hummed into the warm, bristly skin of his arm with laughter. He caught the joke and joined her.

"Want me to _pop_ it back into place for you?" Emphasis on the word _**pop**_ humored her, and she nestled into his chest with further mockery.

"Said the CIA agent…"

He chuckled into the cold rain, leaning over the chair to feel for the guitar she had moved to her own lap. Snatching it back, she shifted her weight away from him to watch in amazement as he began to play, lightly, carefully recalling every cord, every sound the guitar could make.

"Still sounds exactly the same..."

Smiling, he wrapped his legs tighter around her waist, playing. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah…" she focused harder on the movement of his fingers, thinking aloud, "You know I finally learned how to play."

"Yeah, right. Get outta here..."

"I'm serious, an Irish guy in a pub taught me."

He laughed darkly over the rhythm, finding it impossible information, but still intrigued. Lily, annoyed at his laughing, slapped him in the leg, "It's true, and you don't believe me? I'm really good…"

"An Irish guy in a pub?"

"On a trip my mom and I took to Dublin. There was this singer, cute guy actually…" she mocked, with a firm caress of his legs as he shook his head in oblivious tone. "…anyway, he taught me to play one night."

"One night? I tried to teach you for years…you never picked anything up."

"That's because you're a terrible teacher."

Sensing a tease, he back fired on her. "Terrible teacher…huh. Well, that certainly isn't what you said about our other _lessons_." A crooked grin at the corner of his mouth, around the corner of her ear told her everything she needed to know. She took the guitar from him and sat it on the ground while he tried to oppose her leave, and then slyly returned to slide into his lap again, kissing his bare stomach and chest. Sands felt his body tense in drowning warmth as her lips covered him, the sensation of her skin, her mouth, the sound of rain and distant radio tunes, something so vaguely familiar it nearly killed him. And without hesitating to think about the how's or the why's of what they were becoming again, he moved his hand to the back of her head, lifting her mouth to his, and breathing down upon her lips.

When he kissed her that time he tasted like the rain, like refined burning tequila, like the cigarette paper that melted to his tongue. He tasted like _life_, something that she had missed from his face. Life was what they needed, and between the roll of far away thunderclouds, the warmed sheets of the bed, the unmarked territory of beats shifting in the room, and during their passionate movement as one again, they came to accept and relish in the place they had come to. This fork in their everlasting and provincial road. This merger of memories, of vengeance and pain that could only be soothed by the thought of a bay breeze summer and a case that had changed everything for them.

They didn't even have to say the word.


	19. All At Once

**All At Once**

January 18th, 2004

_8:44 AM

* * *

_

The room was nearly unbearable when Lily's eyes opened for a second time. The heat from the widened sliding doors of the balcony, the wretched humidity that she had forever been warned about, covered her legs under the sheets, and slid down her back in rolling beads where her skin met Jeff's. Florida weather was as predictable as her heart in many ways. The night before it had rained, the day before it had been cold, and now, it was almost too hot to stand, without moving, without doing something to ease the tension. When she attempted to wiggle free of his hold on her waist though, Sands pulled her closer to his chest, resting his forehead in the crook of her neck, still half asleep.

Breathing deep, she flipped over in his necessary arms to stare at the ceiling of the room. Her fingers aimlessly tapped, stroked at the soft hairs on his wrist, over the protruding veins in his hand. Everything was as still as if she had never woken up. Only the distant sound of another suite's door slamming shut, a room service cart being wheeled in the hall, and the anxious dripping of the bathroom sink. She tried to close her eyes, but found all actions beyond lying motionless or waking him up, out of the question. There were a hundred thousand things she had to worry about, to think on, and to determine after the night before. There was the sex, which was as amazing as she could ever remember it being. There was the breach of her contract as his physician. There was the endless hope that she felt running through her blood, rising with the heat of the room, and boiling as he pulled her again closer into his hold, kissing her neck.

"Stop debating everything so damn much…" He grumbled at her ear as he woke in full.

"I'm not."

"Liar."

"I'm just thinking. You know, it's that thing where the human mind processes--" He cut her off with a hand to her opposite jaw line, pulling her mouth across and into his, sideways. He knew everything she was thinking, because without sight, his mind was his own sanctuary, his own hell. It helped him understand other human's silent states better. Lily let him deepen the kiss as he pulled her body on top of his, twisted in sheets. Her messy curls barely touched down to his neck, his chest, as his fingers knotted between them. She remained as such, with her thighs grazing against his morning desire, her feet tangled up in his a mile away at the end of the bed.

Eventually she managed to break long enough to begin another statement, "If you think that you can just kiss me and--" but again he stopped her train of thought, her necessity to draw things out in the most useless of terms. His tongue struck at her tightened lips, forcing them open, abusing her own tongue as it slid down and around her teeth. The sensation was wild, one she was sure only Jeff could produce in any natural way, and she allowed it to continue for another moment, pleased only by the fact that it had all but prevented her thoughts from dragging past the required concern.

He released her face, feeling her breath high above his, and waited for her to speak first. He knew too well that she would claim the advantage.

"You act like there's nothing to worry about. Like a fifteen year old with a crush…"

"You wouldn't have wanted to be with me when I was fifteen." He grinned, while rubbing at the tender skin over his bruised eye sockets. "I had too much of a reputation for you to handle, Hanson."

"That's not what I meant." With a sigh, she tore the sheet from his body and wrapped it around her own as she slid from the bed. Jeff shook his head, but didn't follow. He heard the bathroom door shut shortly thereafter, the sound of running water, of the unnecessary flat screen blasting with morning news.

"Oh no," he mocked to himself as he reached out over the mattress for any signs of his clothes, "Don't worry about the blind guy…he'll just use his fucking Spidey senses."

After a nude chase across the bed and floor, he managed to locate his boxers at least, and slid them on. The phone rang simultaneously from the bedside table, prompting him to move with a growl toward the sound, and lift the receiver to his ear as he slumped back onto the bed. "Yeah?"

_"You asshole!"_ He smiled immediately at the sound. _"Did you ever think to wonder…'Hm, maybe I should let Shane know that I'm checking into a separate, un-sound proof room?'"_

"Morning to you too, God."

_"Screw you, Jeff. This isn't a joke."_

He sighed, rubbing his forehead at the rising ache. "If I apologize will you stop yelling at me, and blame Lily instead?"

_"Oh cause' I'm sure that it was her idea to check into a private suite and seduce you all night. You're such an innocent party when it comes to sex, however could I think to blame you…?"_

He laughed again despite her anger, "It was stupid, I admit it. Are you happy?"

_"Not even close."_

"What will make you happy, then?"

Shane sighed from the opposite line, and spoke very simply, dryly even. _"Jack called me when you didn't answer your phone. He went to Debbie's house after Lily left her office closed for a week, and you disappeared. I told him I would find out what room you booked for your little fling, and get back to him. When they call you, if you mention my name in any way…"_

"Yeah, yeah okay. Like I would sell you out, you should know me better than that."

_"I sure as hell thought I did, you've really done it this time though, you know. Washington is on lockdown with you running around on their case."_

He chuckled at this and listened closely to hear the water and TV still running from the bathroom. "I'm not going back, Shane."

_"I know that."_ She replied quickly. _"But you still better watch your ass. If Jimmy finds you out, you know he won't stop at just you…Lily is fair bait too. Her mom is freaking out…you do realize what's going through her head right now, don't you? Lily is all she has left, Jeff…"_

"Thanks for reminding me." The conversation quickly ended with the promise of meeting up for breakfast downstairs, and as he shuffled to toss the phone back to the table, he heard the bathroom door open again. Lily was silent as she walked past his side of the large bed, hunting out her dress from the night before and finding it crumpled on the floor by his jeans. She dressed in record time, feeling at least temporarily refreshed by the cold shower on her hot skin. Drying her hair out with the towel, she glanced over to see Jeff reclined in quiet peace on the bed. He was only in boxers, more than likely unable to locate the rest of his clothes, and it brought her into guilt again, as it always did.

After twisting her hair into a simple bun at the nape of her neck, she stepped lightly around the floor, grabbing his jeans, shirt, jacket, and cell phone, and laying them on his lap at the side of the bed. He was like stone, contemplative in his own mind and locking her out. And had it not been for the instant ringing of her own phone across the room at the bar, she imagined she could have stood there and watched him think all day long.

Reaching out for the phone as it buzzed with the _Foo Fighters_ latest single, she saw it light up with a most appropriate name, interruption, for the moment. _**Mom…**_her finger immediately pressed to answer, her ear to the receiver and a deep breath to follow.

"Hey mom." She tried to sound normal, like she was ten years old again, lying about breaking the family vase.

_"Lillian…what on earth…where are you?"_

"Me, oh I'm just you know…doing a little grocery shopping." It was the best she could come up with in stimulated time.

_"Wrong answer, Lily."_

She sighed, leaning over the bar with her back to the bed where Jeff still sat listening in.

_"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Honey, you're all I have left…if something happened to you down there…I just, I don't know…"_

"Mom, I'm sorry. I am." She tried to sound tough against her mother's agony, but found it almost as difficult as denying herself the view of Jeff. "I have to do this though."

_"For who, for Tommy? Your brother would have lost his mind if he thought you were in danger like this…he wouldn't want you to fight his war, Lillian. You have to let Shane take care of this."_

"Y-you know about Shane?"

_"Of course I do. The CIA has been drinking coffee in the living room for an hour…they've told me everything. Now you need to come home and--"_

"I can't do that, I have to help them." She was determined against the knowledge she was gaining. She loved her mother, and didn't want to imagine her alone, but she loved Tommy just as much, and knew she would never be satisfied without the revenge she felt growing in her veins. "I'm thirty years old now…and I'm staying here to help them, mom."

_"Lillian…"_ As she waited for her mother to continue stressing out, Lily suddenly felt the heat of another body against her back, as Jeff's chin came to rest on the top of her head, leaning over the counter with his arms extended at her own. He held her softly, listening in on her mother's panic, chuckling a few times, and then eventually reaching around to take the phone of out her hand with a smile. Lily turned in his arms, her back to the counter, and their waists pressed together still as he held her to him.

She noticed as he began to talk, that his glasses were back on in coverage of his sole vulnerability. "Deb?" He inquired smoothly.

_"Yeah…"_ she heard her mother reply wearily.

"Debbie, its Jeff." Her voice, once critical, one angry, instantly fell to a sweet lightheartedness, and he prided himself in this.

_"Jeffery? Oh my…honey, it's been so long. Although I see not much has changed as far as your taking Lily on wild adventures…I'm just worried about her…"_

"Me too, absolutely. I warned her the second she got on the plane."

_"She got on the plane herself?"_

"Oh yeah…just walked right on. Insisted she would shoot me deaf if I didn't bring her along…"

Lily's jaw dropped and she tried to shove him away from her, but he held tighter as she heard her mother continue to mumble into the phone, and felt his lips fall to her open shoulder. He kissed slowly, humming with understanding at each of her mother's words. _"This is just very dangerous for the both of you. Jeff, Lily explained to me what happened to you in Mexico, it's terrible. I just hate to think of you trying to work this case in such a state…I wish the two of you would come home…let Shane and the other men take care of this…I don't know what I would do if either of you…"_

He suddenly broke from kissing along Lily's neck and chin to accept what Mrs. Hanson was saying, how she was begging him to reconsider the choice of the case. He imagined he could quit now, convince Lily it wasn't worth the cost of their lives, get on a plane, return to Washington, Boston even, and start all over again. It was a choice; one Debbie wished for, one he knew he had wished for a thousand countless times. But as he pulled back a ways to breathe, contemplate, he thought of a young man, a brother and son, a partner, a cop taken before his fair time, and he instead fell into reassuring Lily's mom.

"Deb, I swear to you…she'll be fine. I haven't let her out of my sight yet, and I don't plan to. Whatever the agency is saying, don't let them worry you. Shane trusts me with or without my sight, and I know I can handle this guy down here. Lily is safe with me…I've always promised you that."

_"And what about you Jeffery? The thought of something happening to you while you're protecting Lillian…I can't bear it…"_

This was why he had always adored Tommy and Lily's mother, the fact that at the drop of any hat, she was his as well, the one he had missed out on. Debbie Hanson cared for him the way that no other person ever had, and still, all of these years later without contact, she was just as protective, just as concerned. He couldn't fight the notion of it, he wanted her to understand that being a part of her family again, with her, with Lily, would be the only remaining consolation in his life. But he held back at the present, to think things through, the way her daughter had insisted on using the tactic.

"We're both going to be fine. We'll be back in time to take you out for Valentine's Day…_promise_."

Lily heard her mom laugh at this, tearfully, but with as much honesty and understanding as she could muster. Jeff smiled without laughing, genuine as he gave silence to the conversation for a moment. Something had taken place between their words, their short reunion on the phone, which left Lily wondering what exactly she had been contemplating in bed earlier. She wondered now, as she hung up with her mom and watched Jeff stumble off toward the bathroom, whether it had been less of contemplation, than it was acceptance, knowledge, contentment. There were a million things she wanted to say to him after that, but nothing seemed to suit the silence that ran its course even still. So instead she replaced her heels from the bar the night before, sat on the bed waiting for Sheldon to finish getting dressed, and stared out at the sunny, Tampa cityscape.

It didn't look half as intimidating as everyone seemed to think.

Her thoughts only lasted a steady five minutes or so before he came hobbling out through the door, cursing at his belt, with one boot on, and his hair greasy, slept in, sexed in. She bit her lip to keep from bursting out laughing, and got up to assist in any way he would allow, handing him a second boot, finding the hole on his belt he insisted was missing. He seemed upset by the fact that he was slowly allowing her to help him more often, with simple things, things that before she came around, he had spent hours forcing himself to learn to do, just so he could claim he didn't need assistance. This was all breaking apart now. And as he sat on the edge of the bed to tie off his boots, Lily stood near the door of the room, tapping her finger lightly on the wall.

"You didn't have to do that you know…" his attention was caught as he heard her across the room, "…with my mom, I mean. I'm a not a kid anymore, I can handle it."She sounded slightly put off by the fact, and when he stood to walk in the direction of her voice, he found himself completely unsure of what to say in return. "You've always wanted to protect me, like I might break…it's why you didn't want me to come in the first place. You just can't give me a chance to prove myself to you, ever."

He was coming closer, solemnly, as he shifted his sunglasses higher and threw his jacket over his shoulder.

"And look…anytime I say anything to you, anytime I try to…I don't know; explain myself…you get all…_cold. _You ignore me."Her voice was growing angrier, but for no reason at all, except to hear herself in tension, to know she could be as strong as him. "Tommy did the same thing to me my whole life…treated me like I was made of glass, like I couldn't be put in danger. You're both wrong…" she stammered, coming away from the doorway, still arguing with the air between them. "…I'm more than capable of doing this, of being down here with you and Shane. I'm angry Jeff…" She yelled out as he came to her finally, and her fist came down to thrust against his heart. He did not waver against this, only let her finish. "…I'm so mad at that asshole, he took him…he had no right to take him…" Another fist, her forehead falling down to his chest as he stood still. Lily's eyes burned with tears into his t-shirt as she clung to his arms, hiding her face under his chin, his arm eventually coming around to hold her waist. "I just want you to let me fight…for God's sake…I need this."

His lips sat atop her head, inhaling the fresh scent of shampoo from her shower, and deciding whether to speak or not. What would he say to all of that? How would be guarantee all of her wishes would be met? How the hell would he ever admit to himself that he wanted her to be here, in danger, risking her life with him, for him, for Tommy?

"Yeah." He replied courtly as she moved away from him, almost surprised. "I know you need this."

"But you're going to try to stop me…"

"No, no." He argued back instantly, listening to her breathing out in front of him. "Who the fuck would I be to stop someone from getting revenge, especially you?"

"I don't believe you."

"Do you ever?"She stopped shortly to laugh back another flow of desperate tears, and then glanced up at him, his face, the posture of his mouth, his cheeks, which told her he was serious. When she was sure he was, she chose to turn her back to him and only listen. "I mean Jesus, Lillian…if you thought I was going to hold you back, do you think I would have let you wander into some cheap side nightclub alone, or even step foot on that goddamned plane to begin with? Christ knows I'm a tad bit stronger than you…"

"No. I guess not."

"I hope to God…" he began, reaching out to take hold of her arms again and bring her back to rest against his chest, breathing in her hair, down her neck from behind. "…that when that fucker is looking into the barrel of a gun this week…you're the one holding the trigger back. That's what I hope."Her eyes shut at his demanding whisper, rattling in her skull as he held onto her.

"Where…" she tried, keeping her eyes sewn shut, trying to understand where he was coming from. "Where will you be?"

"Me…?" He asked questionably, leaning into her. With a deep breath, he slid his hands further down her arms until he could twist his fingers into hers, bringing her hands higher up to stretch out in front of her, from where they stood tied together. Gently, blindly, he fashioned her hands into the makeshift shape of a pistol, holding tight to each of her fingers. "I'll be right here…like _this_. Making sure you follow through." She shook her head against his chest, eyes still closed, focus strengthening in on the image of a gun in her hands, Jeff behind her, Tuzla in front meeting his match. Sheldon kissed her head richly, breathed heavily once more, and sighed, "I'll be watching your back, kid."


	20. Hold On

**Hold On**

En Route to Bayside Marina – _11:25 AM

* * *

_

Breakfast had been a blur and a half. Lily saw Jeff across the table, accepted his silence for what it was; understated knowledge. Shane had bugged her about a dozen different topics for the whole of an hour, while Carter and Andy spent the entire time re-enacting the previous night's episode of _American Idol _and plotting out an escapade in silence. For what it seemed to matter, they were by far the most atrocious group of agents she could have imagined. And at the same time, they were just about the craziest, most strangely brilliant set of individual minds that the CIA could provide.

Somehow, perhaps in recognition of her paying the tab at the restaurant, Lily was gifted with the keys to one of the trucks, and awarded the opportunity to prove her driving skills in downtown Florida. Danny chided that he would impress beyond even her ability to turn the vehicle on, but she matched him in the spirit of things, in the understanding of knowing that Jeff trusted her, that he was ready to let her prove herself now. Shane had for whatever reason opted to ride with the other guys, leaving Jeff and her to their own devices. She wondered if maybe it was because she was still mad at him or not, or whether it was something else entirely. Her answer was found the moment that she saw Andy's hand run the length of her low back as she settled into the back seat of the first truck with him. Lily laughed as she walked with Jeff, reminding herself to bug Shane about it later.

"Take it easy on the bridge alright. I'm well aware of your fondness for the gas pedal…" Sands cooed from the passenger's side as she jumped up to the high driver's seat, and forced the keys into the ignition.

Rolling her eyes, she started the truck up with a rev of the heavy gusto, causing Danny to look out of the window of the car in front of her, yelling back annoyed. "Why don't you just sit back and pretend like you don't know me for five minutes…"she finally returned to him with a sideways grin that she knew he couldn't see, but could sense.

"As if I would give you the pleasure of such freedom." He nodded as he tugged his old baseball cap on, the one she thought she might never see again. Smiling wildly she cranked the radio up to some local station playing good beats, and rolled down all of the windows thereafter. The hot breeze blew in and around their heads as she slid her glasses over her nose, revving up the engine again for good measure. Jeff chuckled under his breath, knowing her level of patience all too well.

"What the fuck are they doing?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

Shaking his head, he moved his hand across, feeling out for where the edge of her leather seat was, where her leg met its end. He grasped his palm around her thigh, reaching up higher against the denim to push at her tense center. Lily gulped at the movement of his fingers, the cockney look on his face as he came closer to her, breathing. "Hit the gas." She attempted to ignore him for an added second. "Come on…you know you want to." He whispered to her, pushing hard at the junction of her thighs as she clenched at his interruption, as she sensed the heel of her Converse sneaker desiring to thrust down onto the gas pedal, the way he knew it would. "What are you waiting for, Andretti? I thought you were going to defy me from now on…?"

Her teeth tightened the same as her legs on his hand as it dove down further. Not thinking twice about anything beside his hot breath on her neck, the pad of his thumb pressing into a place that was all too sensitive for such action, she tore the wheel's clutch into drive, slammed the gas and swerved out of the valet lane, nearly taking off the taillight of Danny's vehicle. Sands, blind or not, heard the shouting, felt Lily's body writhe against him when she belted the Lord's name in vain of her own dangerous liaisons, and noted the jump, the storm the truck wove into as she pulled through the hotel parking lot and out onto the highway. Wholly, unconditionally satisfied, he leaned in against her and planted a teasing, wet kiss on her neck. "You Chatham girls…" he sighed in determined mockery, and then shrugged his hat off to place it on top of her head, for the first time in almost nine long years. "I was warned."

"And you refused to listen."

"God knows I tried…" another wicked grin crossed his lips as she sped up an extra ten miles an hour, drifting out over the bridge he attempted to warn of. Unable to see the view, he remembered it as soon as the bay breeze floated under his nose, through his hair. It felt like they were flying off the ramp, scanning over the water and slowly easing down into the waves. Lily was in control though, he felt this too. There was ease in the drive from there on, as they cut quick corners, listening in to the monotone voice of the GPS, and trying their damndest to sing along to the radio, tunes that reminded them of times just like this one. It was somewhere between, _We Didn't Start the Fire _ and _Masters of War_, that they found the marina's docking lot.

Leaving the keys in the ignition, radio blaring in the empty area, Lily jumped out to meet Jeff on his side of the truck. He stood leaning against the door, lighting a cigarette and still tapping his boot to the music. She didn't feel thirty when she watched him like this, she felt like she was settled somewhere between eighteen and twenty, free, untouchable, with her heart on her shoulder. The way he lived was no different than it had been years ago, he was just better at it now, more confident, wittier.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that smoking kills?" She wasn't serious, only playful. Jeff knew that Lily had never once cared about his terrible habit, even when she tried it herself. So he just shook his head with a wiry grin at her words, leaning harder into the door as she stood on the toes of his boots, holding onto his shirt. He exhaled smoke past her eyes, over her head, puff by puff as he calmed himself. He heard nothing but her breathing, no boats moving in the distance, no other cars, just them, and he was pleased at the opportunity it presented.

After a minute of pulling the last of the tobacco from the _Shag_ paper, he tossed the butt down and slid over it with his boot heel as he turned from her arms, switching positions. His hands immediately took her wrists prisoner as she laughed, holding them against the window of the car over her head, and pressing his weight into her steadily. Breathing was her enemy now; her lungs were demons, traitors, as they closed up with his movement toward her. The blended scent of dried tobacco leaves and mint mouthwash stained her cheeks, her forehead as he murmured over her, "If you only knew…how _badly_…I'm debating the use of my blind card right now…" His mouth settled at her brow line, warming her temple as he spoke, while his hands moved down to lift both of her thighs up and around his waist. She still hadn't gotten used to the feeling of his hardened craving, pushing, probing at her again after so many years. "…I want to do things to you out here…that could get me twenty-five to life…"

Holding back the struggle with a low laugh, she held onto his neck as he pushed her body higher against the truck and harder against his. And as if her mind had been stolen by a hooker for the moment, incapable of adjusting to morals, she preceded to sigh sexily back at him, "What's stopping you?"

A little less than surprised by the response, he laughed and threw his head back as a resounding screech of tires interrupted the mood altogether. Regrettably, she slid down from his waist to land on the ground again, smiling at the second truck as they pulled up a few spaces away. She heard a deep growl in the pit of Jeff's stomach and shook her head from underneath his old cap, patting his chest in a pledge as she leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. Shane and the guys jumped out of the car, howling about the scene, when he took the last opportunity to move down to her ear and whisper greedily, "Note to self…seduce Lily Hanson at a deserted marina…"

Shaking her head at the tickle of his voice, she giggled once more before Danny came in to break it up. "I really don't think the two of you seem to understand the importance of _credit_…in this country."

Andy laughed as they watched Danny check the truck's side for dents of abuse, and approached with his hand again at Shane's back, "Dude, Lily's a doctor. She was probably just testing Sands' _stamina_…or something." He winked once at Lily as her cheeks grew red, and Shane punched him in the shoulder. She grabbed Lily's hand and pulled her away toward the docks a minute later, both of them glancing back to see Sands' blindly roughing up the other two with his boots as he tossed them across the parking lot. The girls drifted down the steps of the dock, a paper in Shane's free hand giving some sort of detail, one she couldn't read in the rush of movement.

"What are we doing here?"

"Well that all depends…"

"On what?"

"On whether or not the FBI is still incompetent enough to get an address wrong."

She laughed, not fully understanding, but entertained merely by Shane's attitude towards the aforementioned agency, the enemy as Jeff had explained it to her years ago. _'I'm gonna work for the CIA one day, they're the hard-asses, they get the job done on one try. The FBI, are like a bunch of rabid, retarded squirrels…' _She laughed in contemplation of the memory, and let Shane continue to pull her along, checking the names on the sides of yachts, sailboats, even small John boats. There were hundreds of them in this particular marina, just sitting around in the middle of what she considered a beautiful day, a warm and perfect day for sailing. It made her jealous.

"Are you looking for Tuzla's boat?"

"Yeah…actually…" she thought suddenly, "… you grew up with boats. You still any good at recognizing the make of one?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"They said it's a Monterey 282 Cruiser. It's white, and the name on it should be _Samaria II_. The docks are about a mile long…it's gonna take forever if we go together."

"Okay, I'll go down this way and call your cell if I find it. What about the guys…?" She asked, turning around simultaneously with Shane to see the three of them, still arguing, and beating each other up like fourteen years old boys. "Forget I asked." They laughed, glanced back at one another with a shake of their heads and then parted ways to search out the boat in question.

Lily took to the docks, the dozens of boats, followed by even more, names of people, places, lovers, all taking the back side of each vessel. There were no Monterey's in sight, mostly larger sailboats, travel yachts as well. She felt strangely at home in this place, weaving in and out of boats, watching them bob up and down in the cool water below, seeing only a few out in the bay as she glanced across at the bridge, the hot sun rising still. Trudging on, her cell phone in hand, she grew almost positive that either the boat wasn't here or Shane was bound to find it on her end first. At the drop of the shorter pier, she spun on the heels of her sneakers, and headed back to the parking lot.

It was in a quick instant though, as she glanced down a lone plank of stepping ground, to where only a few seagulls occupied the warmed wood. Settled alone in the water, tied off in a state of urgent privacy, was none other than the _Samaria II_, the bastard's pride and joy no doubt. Lily knew boats, she grew up on a coast that was full of them, all makes, all models, all modes of interest. This boat, a power sport Monterey, was a gem. 250 MPH, Hybrid Volvo motor by the looks of it, leather interior that gleamed in the sun as she approached it, and enough space for four curious agents and a tag along psychologist. Go figure the luck of U.S intelligence. She hadn't realized just how wide her smile was until she lifted her phone and saw a short reflection as she dialed Shane. The conversation was quick, eager, and provoked to the point at which Lily ended up breaking through the single lock on the fence it was held behind.

After only a few minutes, she heard Danny and Andy running down the docks to where she was, a cooler held between the two of them, a plan they had forgotten to let her in on apparently. "Hope Boston girls like Corona…" Carter teased as he brushed past her onto the floor of the boat, and Lily smiled as she looked beyond his shoulder to see Shane walking along slowly, Jeff's hand on her neck for balance, direction. He came to her a moment later, smiling as if he had expected something along these lines to occur, and moved his hand around her waist with very little mapping necessary, where it belonged best, as they jumped back on board. He walked her in the direction of where a wheel would, should be, a spark in his grin, an amusing excitement in his step as he fell to the white leather seat, and pulled her into his lap.

"I don't know if it's too wise to let the blind man drive…" she mocked, tangling her fingers into his messy hair, and kissing the corner of his mouth.

"Wow, I'm so glad you made the connection for me, Lil." If he had eyes, he would have rolled them at her. Instead he shook his head and turned her around so that her back was leaning into his chest, her head resting on his shoulder as he placed her hands out toward where he pictured the wheel. "That's why you're driving the boat, smartass."

"Uhm…" she hesitated without her bearings to even begin. There was no doubt in her mind that she could do it, that she knew as well as he always had how to start, operate, cruise a speedboat, a yacht, a sailboat, whatever have you. But the thought of doing it now, when the boat belonged to their enemy, a drug lord, a murderer with a hit list the length of the 30 foot boat itself, she was nervous. This though was only accentuated when she heard a loud grumble of argument come from behind where they were sitting, and turned to see Danny and Andy running back onto the boat with two black duffel bags. Sands head shifted at the anxious noise, screams, angered voices.

"Stop it right there…!" They did not of course, and only yelled as they came to toss the bags over the side of the boat, jumping on themselves.

"Fuck…fuck…go, start the damn thing!" Lily shifted as Carter yelled, Andy looking over the back of the seat as held out a copied key for her, a good trick by the CIA no doubt. Two security guards were next to come to the end of the dock, no guns of course, only important looking badges, starched pants, and wearied voices.

"This boat is not for public use…now get down from there…please, each of you."

Trembling in Jeff's lap, Lily begged him to listen, to which he only took her hand with the key and shifted it closer to the ignition hole, turning the boat on no sooner than the two guards had trampled onto the edge of the boat, struggling to get aboard.

"We're CIA gentleman…sadly we can't be touched…" Carter mocked them from the back end of the boat as they came closer to him from the gate.

"Lily!" Shane yelled from above and behind her head, "Let's go…"

Her hand was tightening on the wheel as she felt Jeff's boot come from behind her own leg and tap on the gas, waves rocking against the heart of the boat as the two guards yelled out over the rumbling sound and attempted to pull themselves on. Sands' hands were firm around Lily's waist as he leaned in to groan in her ear, "Defy me…" His voice drove her suddenly mad, and tugging back until the boat was in drive, she felt it grind out and away from the docks with a dangerous echo of water and wood as the two guards fell clear into the water. The guys and Shane shouted from behind her, chanting her on, painfully excited. Lily though could only focus on two things concurrently; one was the rush of bay mist in her face, her hair, as she piled through the waves in the direction of the distant bridge of the Gulf, driving a criminal's Monterey. The second, was the sensation of Jeff's hand as it secretively wound itself between her thighs again, tightly bound where she both wanted it and was afraid to admit she needed it.

She wasn't sure which one was more dangerous for her at this point.


	21. Twisted Logic

**Twisted Logic**

Somewhere in the Gulf..._Mid Afternoon

* * *

_

"So when is someone going to explain to me…what the hell we're doing in this thing?"

There was no response, from anyone. Shane was comfortably lying out on the upper level of the boat, bikini clad and tanning. Carter was rambling on and on in a phone conversation, one that sounded personal, as if it may have been Allie. Andy was relaxing in the seat across from her with a beer in one hand and a portable GPS marker in the other, laughing every fifteen seconds or so at its updating details. And Jeff sat behind her on the same long seat at the wheel, his head leaning back over the edge of the boat, catching the sun upon his cheeks and only laughing at her insistence in the matter. They all seemed too calm to her, as if they had known the trip would come to this, almost like it was their job to pull stunts of this kind. Professional pains in the ass.

"You guys…_seriously_, is that part of the job description?"

"Agents don't have job descriptions, Harvard." Carter chided as he hung up his argument on the phone and walked towards her at the front of the boat. "We do what we see fit…at the moment…in the moment. Welcome to the fold."

Jeff laughed again behind her, his knees locked around her waist where she leaned into him. Lily simply stared up at Danny through her shades, her head slightly shaking at the nonsense of his response. "I don't get it. We just kidnapped a felons boat…how is that helping the government? He's not on the damn thing with us…"

"You're right, he's not. But think about this…" he began, leaning against the wheel with a fresh capped beer in hand and a strange, glowing grin curling up beneath his glasses. "…when those marina watchdogs run off to make a call to a certain owner of said Monterey, which is now…oh," he looked down to the dials on the dashboard below him, "Thirty long miles from port…and they tell him that a group claiming to be CIA bolted off with his ninety thousand dollar boat, what do you think is gonna happen?"

Shaking her head, annoyed, she tried to answer truthfully, "He's going to try to hide from you guys."

"I had a feeling you might say that…."

"Then what?"

"Carter, get to the fucking point." Sands' argued in a grumble from behind Lily, as Andy laughed and kept attention with the GPS.

Danny sighed and took another sip of his beer as he adjusted to look down at her again, "Tuzla is the one guy who's matched the cops, the FBI, us…time after time. And why is that…?" he asked rhetorically, "Well…because he's always one step ahead of them. That cocksucker more than likely already has a plan in effect for this kind of thing…his boat goes missing…he flips the switch."

"What switch is that?" She asked back sarcastically.

"The one that tells everyone to step up, instead of hiding out. Jimmy's smart, he's the opposite of everything we know about criminals…he's stealth, just like the intelligence that tries to catch him. When he feels threatened by the law…he becomes the predator, instead of prey."

"So what does stealing the boat do?"

"It gives us a chance to see what we're up against. It's our official greeting…so to speak." He took another sip of his beer as she sat shaking her head, completely confused by their logic.

"Let me get this straight…you all are purposefully walking into the lion's den…basically doing a tap dance on his boots, and then waiting to see how he'll react?"Sands' hummed with relaxed laughter behind her as she glanced back to see his smile. Danny was nodding when she returned to him. "And this is what the CIA does all the time? Instead of scaring the guys you want to catch, you piss them off…"

"As I said before, welcome to the sector, doc." With a wave of his hand, he got up from there to get another beer, and as she turned around to face Jeff again, she noticed him already sitting up, his arms slowly draping over hers as she crawled into him.

"So we sit here and wait for them to come after us?" She whispered as he brushed back her hair, rubbing her back at the same time.

His head was nodding in approval when she looked up, watching him finish off his beer. "I could have warned you earlier, but figured you would lose your damn mind over it. Come to think of it," he smirked as he stretched out, "…you may still go nuts on me."

"Well it would have been nice to know that we were going to be _shark bait _for the afternoon…"

"Don't worry these won't be the big sharks…not yet."

She wished she could see that statement in a shining light, but even the thought of lesser criminals, the assistants to criminals coming after her with weapons, death sentences by association, by her relation to a certain cop family, was too much for her to bear accepting. Lily tried to find a focus on something else instead. Tanning with Shane would have been an option if they had lent her the information enough to pack her bikini. The radio on the boat kept her attention for a while though, as she sat counting the boats on the distant horizon, trying not to wonder if any of them would come closer, with guns. They never did.

After a while, she drifted to sleep in Sands' arms, her head filled with a number of different thoughts, images, good and bad, steady and wavering. She was wandering on open sea, crashing upon waves in a reckless Northern storm, the sands of the Cape eventually pulling her to them. Each particle of gold sparkled as her boat came ashore, her feet hit the soft grains, and she walked along carefully, following a path of footsteps larger than her own. There was no breeze on the coast, soundless rain only; striking lighting that tore away the sun when she glanced up into the sky. Her white cotton dress turned blue in the shade of the silent clouds, the footsteps disappeared as she stood in place, turning slowly at the sole sound of a voice. _"It's my fault Lily…it was always my fault. Don't do this anymore…" _Spinning around to see the moving lips of a man, she realized that it wasn't who she thought it was; it was Tommy. His face was sad, but a smile kept strong at the corner of his lips as his palm touched her cheek, without sensation, nothing more than a light breeze in the movement. A second later, his eyes were replaced by glasses, aviators she recognized, but not her brother's. Lily blinked into the falling rain, crystals in the spark of lightning, and when she opened her eyes again, the face was not Tommy's…it was Jeff's. And the rain was no longer falling from the sky, but from underneath of his glasses, from his eyes as he pulled the aviators away and revealed the dark orbs she remembered, the glassy auburn heaven of them.

She never had a chance though, as the scene changed itself immediately to black, white, fading into something true, something deep and melodic. A memory.

* * *

"_Can I get you kids some blueberry pie? I made it this morning…"_

_Tommy howled with an aching, full stomach across from Lily and Jeff as they laughed at him, their hands twisted together under the table's edge. "I don't think I'll need to eat again for a month, mom." Debbie smiled down at him as she lifted his plate away, and kissed him on top of the head. _

"_Good. You all hardly look like you've been eating at all up there."_

"_We manage…pizza and beer." Jeff sighed as he relaxed against his own chair with a shared smile from Deb. Lily began to stand to help her mom with the dishes when Tom stopped her. _

"_No way. It's my turn for once."_

"_Let me do it." She chided, reaching out for the bowl of potatoes at the same moment as him, chuckles of competition. But Tommy glanced away to Jeff after a moment, a different grin colliding at the corner of his mouth before he returned to Lily._

"_I've got it, Lil. Sit." After one more instance of struggle on the bowl, she let it go, and settled back down next to Jeff, his arm snaking around her shoulder to pull her to him closer. He kissed the top of her head, and then leaned his nose down to whisper in her ear. _

"_Take a walk with me?" There was something very different about his voice all of a sudden, something that matched the way he had acted most of the evening, an odd uncertainty almost. She glanced out of the sliding door to see the beach, growing dark, and the September wind. _

"_It's cold."_

"_Yeah…" he whispered again with a laugh, "That's sort of why you have me." _

_She smiled at this, and eventually gave in, standing up and walking hand in hand to the door with him. Her mom smiled from the sink and Tom winked awkwardly as they stepped out, bones shivering on contact. Jeff immediately dropped his jacket and helped her slide it over her arms, two sizes too big as always. They walked down the steps of the house, onto the sand, and eventually out to where the water crashed against the wet shore in the purple light of the dark sky. Jeff kept his arm tight around her waist, lifting her body up over the higher waves that came onto the shore, edging out toward the pier, the one her dad had built years before. _

_After a long time, she forced the conversation to commence. "Is something wrong, you seem weird?"_

_He glanced sideways down to where Lily was taking a seat on the bench at the end of the dock. There were a million ways he could have answered her, and none of them seemed to actually fit. He stood standing, too wired to sit. _

"_You should know I'm weird by now, kid." He chuckled briefly, nervously. _

"_No, you're just acting…like…"_

"_What?"_

"_Like there's something on your mind."_

_He said nothing, only stared at her, watching as she wrapped his jacket around her body tighter, her teeth chattering._

"_Jeffery."_

"_Lily."_

"_You wanted to take a walk…but you don't want to talk to me?"_

_Taking a deep sigh, he felt himself losing focus, unable to control the need to run in the other direction, to let her discover the point behind it all herself. Jeff wasn't a nervous person, ever, about anything but this. _

"_I don't know how to start this…" he began, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he spun around to stand at the rail of the pier, looking out and away from her gaze._

_Lily eyed him suspiciously, her stomach turning over numerous times at the way he stood, the manner of his body, the side of his face. Unwilling to keep the silence, she tried to help him. _

"_How to start what?"_

_Another deep sigh came as he shifted back, holding her eyes in the blackness of his. There, in the pits of angst, of terror, of uncertainty, she came to accept something she thought she saw._

"_Oh no." She whispered, her hands half covered by the sleeves of his coat, coming up to hold her mouth in a gasp of air. Lily could feel her eyes burning as he watched her, and shook her head, eyes zipped shut immediately. "Jeff, don't."_

"_Lil, I have to." He murmured under his breath, coming closer to her as she met him in quickness and jumped from the bench, stepping away and back down the pier. _

"_No…no you don't have to." Clinging to his jacket tighter, she hurried off a ways as he shouted back at her. Trying not to listen to him, she only stopped to profess the point on firmer grounding. She turned with tears in her eyes, a choking tickle in her throat, and red, icy cheeks. "Just stay Sheldon, stay right there. Don't follow me…don't, don't do this!"_

"_Lily come on I'm serious…you have to give me a chance with this."_

"_A chance?! You want me to give you a chance to…to…" her breath hitched as she stamped her boot against the planks, rumpling her hair in the wind, with the stress of the moment. "You want to tell me something I don't want to hear…you want to break up with me…you want to break this!" Tears fell heavier from her eyes as his jaw dropped, his shoulders slumped forward the same as hers, and he somehow was coming in closer again, considerately. _

"_What…in the hell…is your problem?"His voice wasn't mean, only shatteringly confused. _

_With quivering lips, she fed his words back to him. "M-my problem?" _

"_I've said it before, and I'll just keep saying it as long as you live…I swear…you are the craziest fucking girl I've ever known. You're insane." _

"_Oh…well gee thanks."_

"_You're very welcome…" His eyes were popping out of his head as he stood before her, not reaching out but carefully easing his hand into the opening where his jacket swung loosely from her body. As his fingers danced inside of the hidden pocket, she flinched and stared at him angrily. "Hold still."Another second quickly passed as she dried her eyes, for the sake of only her stinging cheeks, and watching his free arm delved further around her, pulling her waist closely to mesh with his own. He winked once quickly as it hovered above her nose, and brought his hand from inside of the pocket, curled into a fist for some reason._

"_If you're not going to break up with me…then why the heck did you bring me out here in the cold?"_

_A sly smirk crossed his lips as he gained the confidence he had been looking for, praying for. Holding onto her hip with one hand, he brushed away her floating curls from her nose, her wet eyes, and then carefully eased himself to the ground in front of her. Heavy breathing ensued, more tears, a wavering, shaking jaw as Lily attempted to speak and could only bring herself to gasp. _

"_Lillian Grace Hanson…"_

"_You're not…" _

"_Oh yeah, I am." He laughed, relaxing on his knee, the velvet box perched in his palm. _

"_No."_

"_Yes."_

"_Jeff…"_

"_Lily."_

"_You can't mean this…" He glanced upward at her statement with a tight smirk as she continued to cry. "I mean, you're really serious?"_

"_I told you so…"

* * *

_

When the shadows cleared above her head and the sparkling drift of a hundred insights floated back into the imaginary sky, Lily's eyes cracked open. She felt weightless, the scene was darker, a hazy grey in place of the sun that had shone through her glasses previously. There was still movement under her, around her, but it wasn't as peaceful, it didn't feel like waves. It was a road, a car, high speed and humming music, the sound of arguing voices nearby, but no warmth, no arms around her, no breathing on her neck.

Yawning as she stirred further, her body turned over to face where the voices came from, and as the leather seat beneath her crumpled to fit her form, two heads twisted to draw focus, only one pair of eyes.

"Damn…took you long enough, girl." Carter chuckled as he spun back to re-focus on the road. The other face, tinted by unanimous shades, only smiled.

"Jeff."

"Hey."

"Did I…was I asleep all this time?"

"Dead asleep." He replied with a low laugh as her head fell back on the seat again, and she stared up at the passing moon and streetlamps, upside down, in the large window of the moving car. She began to wonder what she had missed if anything, if Tuzla's boys had made any sort of attempt on the theft of the boat, what had happened to the boat itself now that they were back in the car, and of course, how had she actually slept through any of it at all? Was she more tired than she had given herself credit for? The last thing she could even remember was the sound of Jeff's voice as her eyes fell closed in his arms, he had merely said, _'Don't worry, these won't be the big sharks…not yet.' _Not yet? As opposed to some other time, very soon?

She tried not to think about it and instead took to counting each passing, yellow light above her head, concentrating on the music that was running the length of the truck, and the sound of a pill bottle, nearly empty, shaking into a palm. Letting this last detail pass for a minute or so, she eventually thought on it more clearly, realizing that only one person in the car was in any dire, known need of medication, and that his pill bottle should be nowhere near empty yet. Lily sat up instantly to bear proper witness to the scene. Sands' was entirely too nonchalant about the act, the four or five whole pills that were being tossed back from his palm to his mouth, no water provided for their run down. She practically choked at it.

Leaning in wearily from the backseat to the front, she asked, nervous. "Jeff…you okay?"

He turned back with a half grin, trying to hide something deeper. "Fantastic."

"Do you have a headache?"

"No."

"Is your leg--"

"Lil, I'm fine." He snapped quietly, turning the radio notch a little higher as _Benny and the Jets _filtered in. She ignored the ignorance and pressed on, performing only her job.

"I didn't give you those pills so you could overdose on them. How many did you take?"

He refused to answer.

"Sheldon, you can't take that many at once. The bottle's almost gone…what are you--"

"Enough!" He shouted back instantly, not caring whether he disturbed the driver or not in the process.

"No." she demanded quickly, "I got you that prescription to help you, not so you could kill yourself. I'm still your doctor…now give me the damn bottle."

"Get fucked." When Lily's jaw dropped, Carter's followed. No one said anything. The car continued on over the bridge smoothly, Lily slid back against the seat, legs crossed, arms crossed, eyes watering out of habit but never shedding a single tear. Jeff threw his head back into the seat forcefully, grunting at his own stupidity, his own temper, but never said another word.

After a long, passing minute, it was Lily who spoke. "You were right you know…" a pause in time fell as Carter kept his tight focus on only the road, and Jeff's head shifted solemnly at her voice. "…you haven't changed at all."


	22. Sympathy for the Devil

**Sympathy for the Devil**

Monday - January 19th, 2004

_Noon

* * *

_

There had been no visit to the private suite on the 12th floor the night before. There had been no sexual enticement brought on by alcohol and memories. There had been no one holding Lily when she woke up, alone, tired, restless in the middle of her bed. Her companion for the evening had been Danny, a bed away, snoring. Shane and Andrew had slyly taken off into the opposite room, doors locked, and never returned. She only smiled at the thought, happy for her old friend and her new, secret love affair. Shane deserved everything in the world; she deserved to be contented in life, to have all the things Lily wanted and more.

Carter had left earlier in the morning to take a swim in the pool, mentioning that he had to soak up all the sun he could get before it got cold again. He had offered for Lily to tag along with him, to warm her spirits a little in the fresh air, but she refused. She wanted to think, she needed to think, to process, to find Doctor Lillian Hanson again, instead of this carefree child she had let herself become over the past days.

When she slammed the door to the room the night before, she hadn't given another single thought to where Jeff had gone, where he might have ended up, if Shane had taken him back upstairs to the suite, or somehow pulled her mastermind strings to get another room on their floor. She just didn't care to worry about it after the car ride, the solemn, forced conversational walk through the hotel. Now she did though, sitting out on the balcony, wrapped up in the bed comforter, drinking coffee and watching the clouds separate one after the other. The sun shone through, but she paid it little attention. In her mind she was somewhere much different; a time when seeing the sun, when seeing the shore, the boats, the sand, roads, houses, trees, people, life…had been fair game for all willing participants in her world.

At times, she felt she too was going blind. There was blackness that had been shoveled away for eight years, and yet today, it was piling back up. It was the same darkness that her father left her with, the same Tommy had left. And now, it was Sheldon's turn. He was perhaps the best of all of them, leaving her fighting through black just to get back to him each time, just to keep him in her life somehow, to save him. As soon as she felt she was rescuing him from himself, or putting the odds in his favor again, he pushed her away, he forced her back with the evil that still filled him, the devil that had claimed his once even spirit. She remembered him being a mean person at times, even a callous, hatred prone guy, but never, not once illogically, with her.

Lily had little left in her heart to help him with, all of her good ideas, her attempts, had been shattered. The pills, through his abuse, were becoming the enemy, just another bullet to his beaten body. Her efforts to speak with him, to have her questions answered, to counsel him, had turned into nothing but arguments, nothing but a battle of defiance. Even the love she had tried to give him, the moments of utter passion through the last three days, had been for nothing but greater heartache. It seemed as if trying to understand Sheldon Jeffery Sands was little more than a full time job, it was simply an impossible feat. No doctor after her would master it, if she couldn't. She was absolutely sure of that.

She finished her coffee, and feeling guilt over the perfect, sunny, postcard view, she went back inside and drew the long silk curtains shut on the sliding doors. She was still alone in the room, in silence, in a now hazy blue darkness as well. Glancing toward the bathroom door, she thought about taking a shower, but gave into her laziness instead. The TV couldn't tempt her, her laptop, even the phone that begged for a call to her mother, to her office, to anywhere that would give her something else to worry about, a punishable outlet from her mind. Eventually, she travelled across the room to where her purse sat in the middle of the bed, and dumped out its contents in full, scattering them for better access. There were all sorts of makeup, folds of receipts, her wallet, keys, cell-phone, and sticking out of her checkbook, a yellow slip of paper; the one she wanted.

**A prescription.**

She read the paper slowly, mumbling the details of its content. _8mg tablets…ODT…blocks serotonin…_she dropped the paper after she was satisfied enough with it, and glanced down to grab at the printed sheets she had gotten off of the internet before leaving Washington. The research had been done primarily on the basis of the drug being so new to her office's use, as well as her concern for a certain patient, one who she once thought needed it. She scanned with her finger through the paragraphs of information, voicing certain words, certain things that caught her eye. _Faintness…hypotension…changes in heart rhythm. _These were all side effects of the drug, all things that could and would happen when he went overboard enough with them, when he finished,_ if_ he finished the bottle too soon. She wanted to find him, shake some sense into him, and beg him to cut his toxic, careless bullshit out. But she knew better than to bother with anything like that yet. She had to get inside his head somehow, without actually seeing him. Lily needed to comprehend him, in a way she never thought she would ever have to.

* * *

It played over and over like a broken record in his head. Her worrisome tone, his predatorially sick response. _**'Get fucked'**…_as if he had some right in this world or the next to speak to her that way, as if she were nothing more than a whore on a street corner or a criminal he was taking down. As if she didn't matter at all.

Lily's response was what truly drove him nuts now, sitting in the pitch darkness of what could only ever be his clouded, empty, dead suite, hungry and too lazy to get food, tired and too anxious to sleep, sorry but too angry to apologize. Her words stung still, and rightfully so. **'**_**You were right you know…you haven't changed at all'**. _He knew he hadn't, he was a degenerate bastard, sharpened by the cards he'd been dealt when she had been gone. _**'At all…you were right'**…_sadly he was. The only problem being, that when he had told her this, when he had sworn on his unwavering interest, his unchanging personality, he had been lying to himself, and ultimately to her.

He reached into his jacket for the bottle of pills that they had fought over numerous times, the ones she had given him in confidence of his care, his health, the ones he had abused like alcohol, drugs, worthless, empty sex. There were few left, maybe five, six, less. His body was running on codeine, on the strength of a horse's own heart, on the medication that gave chemotherapy a wicked edge. He was losing himself with every cream tablet he placed on his tongue, with every swallowing choke he made to reduce the pain he felt increasing at every corner. Every time he let her in closer, every single time she tried to help him, the pain stung. He had fought it off for her sake, to tempt her, taste her, have her again. But it wasn't working the way he had hoped, and it certainly was doing anything but confusing him about the state of the case more. On top of trying to help Shane catch a decade old enemy, he had the stress of concerning himself with Lily's safety, no matter what she proved she could do.

The pills were his mental out from everything wrong and bad and tormenting.

From the demons that rattled him.

His room services charges had fed off of his credit for a twelve hours straight, since the night before. He'd already gone through an entire case and a half of beer on his own, the last of his twentieth bottle settled between the thin cotton of his boxers, a cigarette hanging off of his lip, coming to a staggering end. Sands' hadn't done a single thing since Shane had helped him up to the room, but think, play a little guitar to ease the pain of thinking, and then eventually, when striking at the cords of his will power to ignore it became too tough, he went back to debating. Good and evil sat perched on each of his shoulders for the large part of the night and now into the early afternoon (despite his knowledge of it). When one would speak, the other would interrupt with ridicule, false assurance of the master plans being concocted of tobacco and loneliness. He was losing it, slowly, thousands of miles from the only home he'd really ever known in the last eight years, and wishing he could find his way to the elevator, trail in a cloud of dust and despair to the sixth floor, and just say three words…_I'm…sorry…Lily. _

And if that didn't work, there were always the alternative three words.

He shuffled on the couch to remind himself where the stereo remote had ended up, under his thigh and the pillow, and he raised the volume as high as he could manage, holding the button with force into thin air. It was some newer rock, not the classic stuff, a band he thought he knew, _Goo Goo Dolls. _Odd as it was for him to admit he appreciated them better than _The Stones _or _Dylan_ at the moment, he couldn't deny the truth they were laying out for his sleepless, unfocused mind. _You and I got something…but it's all and then it's nothing to me. _He shook his head in acceptance, in knowing it to be honest enough. _And I got my defenses, when it comes to your intentions for me. _This was undeniable. Try as he might to burn his walls for her sake. _And we wake up in the breakdown, of the things we never thought we could be. _Again, there was nothing to do but agree, lift himself from the couch, and throw his beer bottle across the room, across the space, the furniture he couldn't see, and wait aimlessly until he heard it shatter light years away against the wall.

He hoped someone would hear him at that point, come in and drag his sorry ass out and away, lock him up in a place that would always be plastered with her face in the black, and nothing else. He wanted to be forced to remind himself of her, in a four foot cell, for as long as they would allow him to stay, to work out his mind. And yet at the same time, he had the simple desire to lose it all, to have every chance taken away from him, to let someone kill him, quickly. It wasn't suicide if he wandered into the enemy's lair alone, it would be murder by attempt of a dangerous scheme. Lily couldn't hate him for taking her bullet.

But God knew, he knew, she would try.

* * *

**Boylston St, Downtown Boston**

_Christmas Eve, 1995

* * *

_

_The Trans Am rolled carefully over the rain slick streets, desperate tires and all. The backseat and trunk were packed to the brim with hand-wrapped presents and their bags for the weekend. Tommy and Shane drove closely behind them in his Mustang, the two of them working on solidifying their falling friendship for the hundredth time in three years. Lily sat as far over in the passenger's seat as she could, her eyes drifting between the buildings they passed and her own reflection in the rearview mirror. They had been in the car ten minutes, passing through midtown on their way out of Boston, and had not spoken a single word. The last thing she had said to Jeff was in front of his apartment as they pulled away, __**'You need to get gas before we get on the expressway,' **__and__his response was very clearly, __**'Fine.'**__ The fight had been well defined this week, this round. _

_Jeff had gone to a bar. Lily had gone to class. Jeff had come back to his apartment where Lily was sleeping. Jeff had smelled like perfume, not _**her**_ Chanel, but instead something cheap, a drugstore brand. Lily had argued her case against what his appeared to be. And Jeff had been sleeping on the couch since Tuesday, with Lily's engagement ring staring him down from the mantle where she left it for him. _

_They were going to the Cape together, all four of them, for her mother's sake. Shane and Tommy knew very little about their situation, and only assumed it was another one of their pointless fights based on nothing more than false theory, usually on Lily's side. Jeff knew he hadn't touched a single woman in the bar, but he chose not to fight her over nothing, and instead waited for the moment that would give him the clarity he needed to reassure her of his faithful pride. There was no one who could tempt him the way she could, and the few times he had been even slightly swayed in the last three years, it had been a mute irrationality. He needed her the way that Boston needed sun at this point. The separation, even in the car, was more than he knew how to bear, more than he could believe he had endured all week long. He wanted to reach across and grab her hand from her lap, hold onto it without needing to say a word. He wanted to touch her cheek, brush her veiling hair away; he just wanted to kiss her. _

_The car rolled into a clean stop at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley, no slam of the breaks, no motion at all. Ignoring him entirely, Lily moved her hand across to turn the radio up, the oldies coming through with __**Sweet Caroline**__, a classic on this street. Normally she would have smiled at this, a song they both knew, one they had each been individually raised on and sang well together. But today, she took her hand away and regained focus on herself and not him. She reached into her purse to take out her mascara, flipping down the half broken mirror and slowly applying the black to her eyes, feeling his stare from beside her. It did not make her change pace. She found her lip gloss and slowly speared it on as well, red for Christmas. _

_As she went for a second coat, Jeff grew anxious in watching her, being jealous of the tube of lipstick, where it was, where he wanted to be, and lightly tapped the gas, drifting out from the stoplight, and then immediately dropped his foot to the break. Lily's head jerked with her hand as the lipstick just missed her mouth and went towards the window. Grunting sweetly, she snapped her face toward him with an evil glare. Jeff tried his best not to laugh but found it too difficult to hold against, and so he did. This angered her even further as he rolled her eyes and turned back to refocus on her lips, stroking gently with the red goo, until he again found it impossible to stop himself, and jerked the car forward a second time, with a shove on the breaks as the stick of gloss ran against the corner of her mouth and cheek. _

_She said nothing, barely moving as he laughed on. The light was one of the longest in the city, and they both knew it. Time wore on as she closed the tube of lipstick and threw it back into her purse, sitting as still as possible, looking out at the intersection, the red smear untouched from her cheek. _

"_You still look sexy to me, baby." He enthused with a wide, laughing grin spread across his face. Lily noticed herself trying to hold back the same amusement, doing her very best to remain mad, to keep the ignorance intact. With Jeff though, nothing lasted very long unless one was strong enough to prevent it, and she usually wasn't. _

"_I'm not talking to you." She chided, a corner smile approaching on her lips. He saw this, the same as she felt it._

_He rolled his eyes with a humored sigh. "What else is new?" _

_Silence prevailed yet again, for another minute, bringing their waiting period to almost three at the same red light. The rain pounded on the window, the wipers brushing back stroke after stroke, playing against the tune of the song, against her beating, fixated heart. Eventually, after another thirty seconds or so, she noticed from the corner of her eye, Jeff shifting into his jacket pocket as if he were looking for something. She tried to ignore him, but found it almost difficult when the light instantly flashed green again and he was still too preoccupied to move the car. _

"_Will you cut it out and go?!"_

"_Not yet…" he concluded as he tugged his palm out of the jacket and held it out, open for her to see its content. "Not until you put this back on."_

_It was her ring._

_She only looked down at it, then up at him angrily, furious by his timing. The seconds continued to pass, a line of traffic honking at them in a lead by her brother, and his smile wide, hopeful. _

"_Put it back on for me, please."_

"_Swear you didn't cheat on me."_

"_Easy. I didn't cheat." He returned mockingly, ignoring the shouting and horns from behind._

"_You said it too fast. I don't believe you."_

_Shaking his head, he crumpled the ring in his hand again for safe keeping, and instantly leaned over from the wheel of the car, forcing his lips against hers, still wet from the fresh gloss. Lily tried to force him back, growling softly, until she eventually succumbed into the sound of the rain on the car and the angry drivers waiting on them. Her lips parted to allow his tongue the feast it seemed to desire, and as he slid within the heat of her mouth, he felt his foot coming off of the break. The car drifted a little before he caught it, his mouth still pressed tightly to hers, the swirl of his tongue against hers even rougher. In that instant of time, she forgave him for something he didn't do. She let him back into the circle. _

_They pulled away from each other in time to make it through the intersection, leaving Tommy and the other fifty angered drivers in a rumbling cloud of smoke and rain, waiting on a second red light. As they floated off towards Chinatown on their way out of South Boston, Lily took the ring from his hand and returned it to its rightful place, as if nothing had ever forced it off.

* * *

_

**Shane & Lily's Room – 6th Floor

* * *

**

She remained standing, looking at the pile of mess from her purse, thinking about that day so many years ago that it had almost ended, the day she almost went back home to Chatham for good. Jeff's persistently adorable ways stopped her, they always had. With a smile and promise he could change her mind, with a laugh, a kiss and a sworn assurance, he good bring her back to him. She doubted though it would be so easy this time, she wasn't twenty anymore, she had a mind and a decade of added knowledge since then.

Reaching out into the stuff she had dumped from her bag, she saw the twinkle that her memory had conjured back up, the need to find the jewel. Wound to the curve of a white gold chain, was the ring. It hadn't changed at all in eight years, it still fit her finger perfectly as she placed it on, and it sparkled like the cold night he gave it to her, the rainy day he gave it _back _to her. She smiled out of habit, and took it from her finger to place it back into the pile.

"I need a drink," she whispered to herself with a smug grin.

Making her way to the wet bar, she found a bottle of wine that Shane had ordered on another night, and poured a glass smoothly, taking two sips. It calmed her as quick as she needed it too, and as she pranced back around to the other side of the bar, headed for the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of a silk something or other in one of the chairs. Lifting it to the lamplight in the room, she saw that it was a long scarf, satin, blue, and more than likely something Shane had left sitting around. She played with it for a minute or so, drinking her wine, her mind processing an idea, a thought, a scheme.

Lily had only wanted to understand him, to comprehend what he was going through, to attempt to "see" and feel the world on his level; to help him. The scarf in her hands held the answer she needed, a blindfold, an imaginary state behind it cover. She could be Jeff this way, learn how his mind works in utter darkness, get to the bottom of the pain, the agony, by merely stepping into his world, and wandering around hopelessly lost for a while. Medically, it was laughable, but mentally, it sounded so insane, that she was willing to bet that it just might work, that maybe it could bring her the answers she required to save him from himself for good.

Setting the glass down, she tiptoed out into the middle of the room, the blue satin of the scarf almost perfectly complimenting her silk nightgown of a similar hue. Before blocking her view, she reached out to grab the remote for the stereo, and pressed play on the CD that she had left in from days before. The volume was forced as high as it would go, anything that was left on the floor remained as cherished obstacles, and she then slowly lifted the scarf to her eyes, tying it, rendering her visionless instantly. Between her already wary sense of the room, the classic, pounding beat of Keith Richard's Gibson, the lightness of her weight she had from the wine, and her amused, reckless mind taking over, Lily more prepared for the truth than she ever had, and carefully, awkwardly took her first step into blindness.

"Think like Jeff…be mean…" she whispered out loud with a smile as she counted her first steps, _"One…two…three…"_ the music continued as she hobbled away in the direction of the bed, unbeknownst of course. Another three steps came and went and her knees fell into contact roughly with the baseboard of the bed. "Damn. Okay…6 steps from…_wherever_."

She turned around, refocused, trying to catch the tempo of the music but of course failing as soon as her foot twisted inside of a misplaced shirt and threw her forward quickly. Catching her balance before a rug burn ensued, she laughed it off, and went on, in the middle of the room, stepping with an extended foot for future knowledge of the floor's mess. It wasn't anywhere near easy, but it was interesting in a very morbid, almost troubling way. Holding her hands out, she continued counting steps, the heels of her bare feet close in manner, and her fingers wiggling in reach for the next barricade. It ended up being the long table beneath where she recalled the flat screen TV. She traced the edge of the table for its length, touching the few objects on top of it, and let go as she neared where the bathroom ought to have been in her mind. Proudly, she found it without a hitch.

"There's no way it's this easy all the time…he would be nicer if it was." Smiling at the statement, she felt her way around the bathroom for a few minutes, noting the steps from the second door of the toilet, to where the large glass shower opened up. The counter was as ongoing as she remembered it looking like, with two separate sinks, another, smaller flat screen mounted into the mirror, and crap scattered everywhere from their stay. She left again, counting off with her feet from the door to the direction of the wet bar. This though, was easily halted by the barstool she had forgotten was out of place, in the middle of the room, from where Danny had eaten his breakfast in front of the TV.

She took four steps in its path, before her foot fell under the rounded leg, and her entire body fell over it, screaming loudly through the music, and rolling against the ground as it toppled her thighs. "Ow, shit!" She lay still for a moment, her eyes, though blinded tight, facing upward to the ceiling, her back arched on the floor in pain. Lily took a breath, pushed herself up, kicked the stool out of the way and stubbed her toe in the process, growing even angrier. She grabbed at her foot and fell back to the floor, cursing, yelling in and out of the high pressure of the rock music.

_I need an aspirin and beer…_she thought simply, only catching the impulse another three seconds later. She let her foot rest on the floor as she sat in the black, thinking about it, about _aspirin_, pain killers for her toe, her legs, her mind from this rendezvous with practical suicide. Lily was catching on quickly to Jeff's state, to the ticking time bomb his brain had come into, she was beginning to realize the importance of those pills for him. _It's for the physical and mental agony, _she debated, _the pills are the only reward he has for himself. To get up…and try again. _Pushing herself onto her knees, she crawled across the floor and back to the bed, reaching up and feeling around in the mess from her purse again, until she found the box of Tic-Tacks she was looking for.

"You're not the only one with nasty little pills, Shel…" she hummed with a shake of the box into her hand. When she felt one of the round mints fall into the palm of her hand, she shucked it back and swallowed, never tasting it, only needing the mental pull, the effect on her brain. Of course the mint did nothing but settle into her stomach with her breakfast and coffee, but it somehow gave her ability to stand up again, to push on and try over with the action. Lily's feet pattered against the carpet again as she began reaching out, feeling the edge of the bed, the nightstand, the lamp, the door to Shane and Andy's room, the curtains on the wall, the sliding glass doors behind them, which were warmed with glowing heat, heat she could feel upon her faux blindness, tempting her. She stood for a moment, letting herself fall into his mind, into what he would feel or know at this moment. She imagined what would be in his head, what his answer to this loss would be, _Fucking sun…has no remorse for those of us lost in the dark. _It was about right.

She went on forever throughout the room, testing all limits, falling over couches, beds, more chairs, a table or two, one of her high heels, and even a pair of Carter's boxers. Every time she fell, or tripped, or made a mistake that cost her any mental stability, she swallowed a mint, "a _Zofran_ tablet". With the music still blasting, her eyes covered, and her head somewhere else in an attempt to become a confused man, a lost soul, she never noticed the company she had gained.

Shane and Andy had left their room a half hour into her blind escapade, and come to her room to check up on her. She couldn't hear the key card click to let them in, she couldn't see their faces to know they were there, and she couldn't hear them calling her name, watching her, laughing at times and for Shane, wanting to cry at others. She watched Lily with a confidence that almost broke her heart completely. Shane understood what she was doing, she could see it in the way she tripped with a curse of willful anger, the way she counted her steps for later notation, the way she tossed back Tick-Tacks like they were opium. She got the hint, the gist, and she could feel the love absorbing her bones, the love that her best friend had for her brother…still and forever.

They left her to continue the experiment, Andy chuckling at the art of her medical practices, and Shane hopeful for her brother's condition, for a change.


	23. Hope For Me Yet

**Hope For Me Yet**

Sands' Suite – 12th Floor

_6:01 PM

* * *

_

_I'm just a worn out pair of boots and a beat up old guitar..._

The song from only days before was on repeat, a button that took him twenty minutes to find on the remote. It's words, the singer he still only knew by voice, by tempo, filled every last corner of the space around his weary head. He heard himself in the lyrics, he saw everything he'd done wrong, all the stupid choices he'd managed to make in his need to travel to Florida, to finish the Tuzla case for good. He'd fucked up, and well enough to have ruined more than one person's spirits. Sands' let the music continue on and on, shuffling through now familiar words as he slowly eased himself from the couch and tore across the room, tripping on his boots and kicking at the chairs in his way. He decided to put in another call for room service, if only to give him a mental shortage for a half hour or so as he ate.

He ordered chicken wings, more beer, and an entire key lime pie. He didn't know why, it just gave him a small piece of mind.

He returned to the couch thereafter, another unlearned trip over his dirtied boots, and he slid down to the cushions with _Hank_ steadied on his thighs, his fingers wired into place. Strumming was the object, the goal to announce himself above the sound of another man's guitar, another man's love song. He pounded at the aged, abused beast that had been his only friend on so many lonely nights in Mexico, in the states, wherever he was and wherever she wasn't. Lily's memory was like a drug that fueled the ever existing devil in him, forcing the guitar to play her songs, her scent, her every lasting detail, over and over again, until the sun rose in the west, in the south, anywhere he was alone without her.

_Girl you just might be, that outside chance for me…_

…_Yeah you're the one good shot, at redemption that I've got._

It could have been hours passing, days, weeks, months, years, and he would have never known the difference. He couldn't see anything that told him the time, he couldn't feel the hand of any one person that he knew to sense their aging, and he couldn't think beyond the present, his state of depression. Every second found him falling further into nothing really. Sands' was worse off now than he had been the day he lost his sight, or the moment that he was betrayed by the woman he gave almost everything to, even worse off than the day he lost Tommy to Tuzla, or Lily to her own fear. The state he was in now was wretched, all based on memory's sake, and only got worse with each step she made toward him on the blank canvas, every fairly impure thought he managed to concoct in her absence. It was killing him, the way she insisted the pills were.

Jeff thought about calling her room, asking her what the weather was like on her floor, sunnier, breezier. He wondered if he could call her and apologize. Would his blackened heart allow such a thing to happen? Would he find himself a victim instead? He couldn't answer the questions rhetorically, and figured that the reality would be twice as difficult on his brain. Could he drift up 6 more floors, wander aimlessly in counting doors, feeling the gold plated numbers for the _5…1…4_… the one's that belonged to her for the whole of two weeks, Lily's number, 514? He knew he was capable of it, he was blind, not a psychopath after all. Or was he? Was he so dangerous to her, to himself, to the world that he should instead just limp down to the lobby, use up his assistance with the valet, and get a quick limo back to the airport, a red eye back to Washington, and a taxi back to his lonely, empty apartment? Maybe so. Maybe this was what was stopping him from doing everything he wanted to. All the things he knew could fix what he'd broken this time.

Sands' hated admitting that he actually had feelings other than pride, anger, and wickedness rolling around inside of his gut, but they were undeniable at any cost. If he didn't learn to accept them himself, he would never find the cure for them, in all the millions of days he would be alone and lost in the dark, from then on. No one would help him the way he feared Lily could, and now, even she wasn't willing to bother it seemed. Not that he blamed her at all. He would rather her stay away, free and clear of his risky behavior, his mental instability, than be an accidental target for another empty bottle.

_There ain't much of nothing in me…left to be saved, but baby I bet…_

It was as if the song's insistence met the destiny of a knock on the door. Figuring, as any logically blind, disoriented man would, that it was the room service, he took his time. He turned down the music as much as he could manage, limped on his worsening, bad leg and counted his hobbles to the doorway. He tore his glasses out of his back pocket to hide what he otherwise hated to show off, wiped the drool and beer from his chin, and rustled his hair into some sort of decent state. As if he actually cared what anyone thought of him?

The doorknob spun in his hand, the door clicked open, cracked gently toward the lighter grey of the hallway, and he spoke normally, "That was really quick…I figured it would take at least an hour for the wings."

There was no response and no sound of cartwheels.

His stomach jumped into his throat at the wisp of perfume in the hall, and he knew.

_If you could love somebody like me…there might be hope for me yet.

* * *

_

**Chatham Bay – Hanson House**

_Christmas dawn 1995

* * *

_

_The room, her room, was colder than she would have liked it to be. Her feet were bundled into the quilt her grandmother had sewn for her as a child, and her wool sweater was on, but still Lily froze for some reason. As she twisted against the yellow glow from the open window, she blinked hazily to see a figure standing at a distance across the otherwise small bedroom. It was no wonder she was cold. _

"_Jeff…?"_

_He turned quickly, a smile brightening his face as he pulled his hands out from the front pocket of his hooded Boston P.D sweatshirt and came to sit on the bed. _

"_I'm freezing because of you." She smiled up at him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes._

"_Well I'm glad you're up…" pulling her hands away, he tried to get her out of the bed quicker, "You're missing it."_

_Tumbling down from the mattress, shivering in his arms, she tried to keep her eyes pried open from sleep as he walked her to the window. "What?" He stopped her at the glass, his arms tight around her waist, making her feel instantly better as they watched the snow lightly fall across the beach, sticking to her window. Snow was a rare event each year on Chatham, with the coast too warm to usually harbor such storms. But it had on this day, this year, their last Christmas together. _

_Lily felt Jeff's lips brush over her ear; her partially exposed neck, and hold her closer to his chest. _

"_Let's go." He whispered, to which she only laughed and followed him out of the room. She found a comfortable grasp as she jumped on his back and he skipped down the stairs quickly. As they plowed through the living room, she saw the twinkle of her mother's perfect wrapping job under the tree, presents scattered, and her Grandpa Samson snoozing in the recliner already. She laughed and clung to his neck tighter, her legs wrapped around his waist as he held onto her, running, darting for the back door. She waved to her mom and Aunt Susan cooking in the kitchen as they went through the sliding doors to the deck, down the same wooden steps they had always trampled from, and into the sandy snow. _

_For a moment, Jeff stood motionless, holding onto her in the middle of the beach. Lily kissed the top of his messy, sleep deprived hair, and glanced down at where her hand sat against his shoulder, her ring sparkling in the early morning light. "I love you, Sparky."_

_When he let her slid down his legs, turning to stand a foot higher than her, he was only smiling. He never wanted to forget how she looked at that moment in time, how she looked like Christmas morning to him, the way her ring danced on her slender finger, the way her hair melted with falling snow, the way she called him Sparky, the honest glow in her eyes. The glow that said, 'You're mine, buddy. Get used to it.' _

_He wanted to remember it forever, just in case, he was forced to forget.

* * *

_

"Wow."

Her exclamation was one of both shock and despairing guilt. Sands only heard the mockery in it.

"What now?" He replied, annoyed at her voice, her scent, her everything.

"I just have to admit…" she paused, stepping towards the open doorway closer. "I don't think I've ever seen a person deteriorate so quickly before."

Lily stood with an awkward smile as she noted every facet of his downfall from the previous evening. His hair, tangled, greasy and hanging across one of his Ray Ban lenses. The previously sexy stubble on his chin, jaw, above his lip, had grown twice the length overnight somehow, giving him the appearance of a Motley Crue disciple. He stood in his boxers, which were ripped at the leg, and an ancient, unreadable band tee. All of this notwithstanding the odor he'd acquired, of tobacco, angered sweat and lack of deodorant and cologne.

He was a mess.

"I should have guessed you would be up here to bash on me soon enough…"

"No bashing. I swear…" She held her hands up in defense, although he couldn't see to acknowledge it anyway, and had only to trust her voice. Leaning against the door as it sat half open, he ignored the opportunity to invite her in for another minute, listening to her breathing, her few choice words. "…my plan was actually to apologize."

He perked up at this, standing tall again, noting the strange honesty in her voice. She wanted to apologize to him, for a conversation that went badly, only because he was the asshole. He couldn't understand it, but was too curious to deny her the option of giving in herself.

"I…I haven't been doing my job very well, at least not with you…_this_ time. I missed a lot of things. _Things_, that if it were anybody else…I would have seen."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Jeff…I wanted so badly for you to, well I wanted you to be _you_…and I ignored the fact that you had changed. I was looking past your injury. Too far past it."

"And that's a bad thing because…"

"Because I'm your doctor. It's my job to help you."

With a deep cough and shake of his head, he stepped back from the door a ways, hoping she would know to follow him inside the room. And she did.

The room was in nearly the same shambles as his body was, torn apart, shattered in places, dirtied, a wreckage of something deeper, something she should have seen weeks ago. While he stumbled through the mess to find the bed, she picked up a few items, empty beer bottles, clothes, trying to do what she could in his ignorance.

"Stop cleaning it up, Lily." He grumbled from the edge of the mattress as he sat down.

He was better than she still, had given him proper credit for. After dropping a small pile of dirty clothes into the nearby armchair, she walked slowly across the room to where he was seated, keeping her practiced distance. In her mind, from the 6th floor to the twelfth, from elevator to hallway, hallway to his door, she had prepared herself for the coming of this moment; she had gone over her method forty different times at least. First, her eyes began to scan the floor, the bed, tables, bar, for the bottle of pills, or at least what she pictured was left of them. When she could find no evidence, she looked down at his slumped form solemnly.

"I need the pills, Jeff."

"Why?"

"Because you don't need them."

"New personality trait of yours…? Hypocritical endurance?"

Rolling her eyes, she came closer to him, not touching but making firm grounding on her request. "Where's the bottle at?"

He sighed haggardly, and pointed into the middle of nowhere in his head, "It's in my jacket pocket."His arm remained outstretched, fingers limp, and as she stepped aside to walk in the direction he pointed, she grabbed his hand softly, and squeezed it before drifting away. Sands felt every part of him seize up into an electric current at her renewed touch, although he loathed admitting it.

Lily took little time finding the jacket crumbled into the corner near the bathroom door, ripping the bottle from its inner pocket, and shaking to reveal the bittersweet end to its contents. There were two pills left, tapping against one another crudely as she walked into the bathroom, dumping them down the toilet with a quick flush, and then returned to where Jeff sat on the bed, miserably playing out the soundtrack of what she was doing.

"I sure as shit hope you have an alternative scheme to replace those."

"I do." She smiled down at him, feeling better by his easy acceptance of the pills dismissal. "But you have to trust me."

He knew he did; there had never been any reason for him not to in thirteen long years. Even the eight of which she ignored him, ran away, escaped from him, he trusted her more than anyone else. With a quick nod, he stood up from the bed to feel the patter of her breath between the holes of his shirt's neckline.

"Do your worst on me, Hanson."

With a giggling step toward him, she accepted his confidence, and without saying a word more, leaned up on her toes to press her lips warmly to the hollow curve of his neck. An uneasy flinch came from his body against her mouth, the tenderness of her moist lips upon his already stifling skin, and it sent shockwaves through his throughout him in places that had been neglected for too long. Either it was the effect of the alcohol, or it was the reaction of his sobriety from the pills for almost twenty hours. Sands only knew for sure that he had never experienced the sensation of a woman's lips, of Lily's mouth, the same way before, and when she finally dropped away from his neck, he found himself groaning lightly in displeasure of her absence. He wanted her back in the same place again, whether it was part of her method or not, he needed the heat again.

Lily knew this and smiled up at his saddened face. "Well…was that better than the pills?"

"What…" he struggled, reaching his hand out to take hold of the back of her neck, pulling her towards the heat of his mouth, "What the fuck do you think?" As he tried to force their lips together, she stopped him with a laughing shove of his stomach.

"That's not how it has to work, Agent Sands. You're abusing the medication again. You seem to have a real problem with that…"

"Fine, you caught me, I want to slam you up against the nearest wall…well the nearest one I can find…and abuse your body…" she bit her lip to keep from laughing at him, "You better shoot me if sex is a crime now."

"Sex isn't a crime, although in your case I think it should be." He chuckled at her briefly, still desperate for the sensation to return, and fearing it would not. "I'm giving you an _incentive_, Jeff."

The sex-kitten tone of her voice drove him insane very quickly, and he let it be known. "You need to explain yourself…and fast…before I find that _wall_…I'm stronger than you whether I have eyes or not."

"Jesus, calm down." She smiled, her hands still pressed into his low stomach, holding him back. "The rules are simple, if you think you can follow them?"

"I can dig whatever the hell you can lay out, baby."

"Alright…" she grinned, spinning about his nervous form, her fingers teasing at his hardened chest under the thin material of his t-shirt, as she slowly came behind him. "…it's easy. You have to answer my questions…_each_ question. You have to tell me everything I want to know…without lying."

The coming stipulations were difficult for him to accept as coolly as her lips. He knew at least the start of what she was curious about, the very fine details that he had refused to share weeks ago in her office. Mexico was his brain tumor, the memories keeping him from sleeping most nights, the phantom pain of his eyes constantly drilling through his head, forcing him to be angry, to swallow pills for non-existent aching. Releasing the demons was not a good idea on any account, but with her hands situated somewhere between his ragged t-shirt and the envelope of his jeans, Sands found himself a weary participant in her polygraph charade.

"What do I get?"

She smiled as she hugged him tighter, resting her chin into his lower shoulder blades. "What do you need Sheldon?"

A haggard sigh. A desperate growl.

"_You…_"

It was all she wished to hear, was his need, for her. To know that the desperation for her rose above the medication, the alcohol, all forms of bodily abuse. Lily had her sights set on getting Sands back on track with life, defeating the monsters that clouded his otherwise healthy spirit, and helping him to _see_, that his eyes weren't everything in the world. That it was possible to live between the blackness, and see the light in the things that truly mattered, the things that would never let him down.

As she stepped out from behind him to come back to his slouched, frantic face, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. He seemed to accept the gentle greeting with pride in himself, as she began to speak in a hushed peace. "Why did they send you to Mexico, Jeff?"

He bit his lip once, "They wanted to dispose of me quietly…."

"Explain please?"

"Hmm…alright. The head of the cocksuckers is Dane," she laughed as he went on, "Then there's Jack…he's sort of like the Colonel Sanders of all the little agents."

"Okay…"

"Jack wasn't too happy with how I had handled a Denali prostitution ring…so he found this makeshift purgatory for me again in Mexico City. I'd been there once before, years ago, for a month. This was so fucking different though…he sent me down there to work on terrorists threats from the counterrevolutionaries to the Governor of Texas. Apparently the Alamo is still an issue with them…"

"I guess that makes sense. So he sent you on a case that was otherwise pointless…to get you out of his hair?"

"Yeah. Nice government the two of us work for, huh?"Rhetorically, he chuckled, taking a step toward her scent, hopeful once again. "Do I get my meds now…_doc_?" Lily sighed as she felt his arms wrap around her waist and pull her into him. She ignored his lips though, and went for the heat of his neck, slowly tickling his Adam's apple with her tongue, and stroking up toward his ear, where she kissed him. His entire body grew firmer at her every touch, and without embarrassment, he thanked her with a squeeze before she pulled away again. There was no doubt to him that it was working better than the yellow tablets ever had; Lily was just as smart as he had always given her credit for.

"So they sent you to deal with terrorists? Alone?"

"No, Shane was set up as re-con in the upper city. She was my _stealth source…_did all the checking, all the spying from a broader perspective, and then sent it to me at ground level."

"And you were what…playing dress up?" He cocked his head at her question oddly, while his mind was a rush of interests for_ her_, how she had guessed that was his style, his way.

"I gotta tell ya Tiger Lily…" he cooed with a drunken murmur, "…your _intelligence_ is killing mine off completely. Did Shane say something about--?"

"No." She cut him off, reaching into her back pocket for something. "But I did find this…" she placed a small, rumbled mustache into the palm of his hand with a laugh, "…in the pocket of your jeans a few nights ago." He chuckled proudly as he stroked the furry identity in his hand, remembering the way it made him look, and how he had brought it along for old time's sake on this trip.

"One of my old pals." She laughed at him, shifting her weight with the thought of more inquiries.

"So you disguised yourself, and what, went undercover?"

"Yeah."

"Who were you after?"

"How many questions is that, four?"

"Oh…" she smirked, understanding him immediately.

"I'm cashing in." Without warning, Sands reached out to take hold of her waist again with one hand, while the other moved up to press firmly around her breast, through the thin cotton of her tee. His mouth came crashing down to hers before she could speak again, and as his thumb rolled over the peak of her yearning breast, his tongue drove harshly between her lips. The harder he held her to him, the wetter, the hotter her mouth became against his, the less he felt the striking pain in his leg, the less he heard the demons growl in his head. Lily's knees melted at his touch, from the sensation of his saliva mixing with her own, his thumb and forefinger kneading through her shirt. Seconds passed like minutes when she realized he had pulled away slowly, still holding her up from falling to the ground below. "I like this prescription better…" he sighed against her lips, kissing once more lightly, and then helping her to stand.

"Feel any pain?"

"Only the good kind." He smiled down at her.

"I'm glad. Now…tell me who you were hunting in Mexico."

Running his hand through the mess of his hair, he concentrated on the approach to the response, eventually divulging. "Well, the Texan threat passed and Shane and I were on our way out, when there was this gun scare at the capital. We went down there hoping for one last fucking waltz in the city…and ended up walking into a storm of government takeover by the Barillo Cartel, an attempt at it anyway. That was almost a year and a half ago."

"So you basically got hit with a double case down there?"

"If that's what you want to call it, then yeah. We got screwed, ended up having to follow the cartel around for the next year. I swear I thought Shane was going to lose her mind after a while…just from absolute boredom."

Lily was silent as she calculated his details, how Shane fit into it so far, and what there was still left to be found out, to be answered.

"Don't leave me hanging, kid. They sell aspirin in the gift shop downstairs…" Glancing up and out of her mind, she saw his wiry smile as he leaned in towards her face, longing for her again. Lily grinned at him, wiping his cheek with the back of her hand. Sparing the moment for the tenderness of his face, to stare at him, different than the action before, tired looking now, she sighed and met his lips quietly. There was no force this time; it was somber, remorseful, as if his apology was settled on his mouth, as if he were whispering it to her. When she accepted, she let herself drift away, still holding both sides of his face.

"When did the boredom end?"

"When the war began." His answer was quick, almost deadly silent in nature. Almost as if he were afraid to recollect the images, too scared to bring about the past for re-nullification. Lily sighed as she ran her hands through his messy hair, a feathery kiss to his chin.

"Is that how you…well I mean, your eyes…did they…?"

"I got in too close with the disguise."

"What does that mean?" He remained unspoken for a long minute, breathing deeply when she did, and tiptoeing through his memories one by one. The sound of certain guns, the laughter of an enemy or two, the taste of a woman's lips after the deception had already taken effect. He could feel Ajedrez in the room around them, her cackling spirit draining what little was left of Lily's revival with him, the devil's hand washing him away while she held onto him. "Jeff?"

Kicking himself back into the reality, he pursed his lips together tightly, and spoke.

"I trusted the wrong person…the wrong…_woman._"

Lily kept her breath, her words in check for a moment as she watched his previously high attention span, his focus on her lips, her body, disappear. Jeff stood taller away from her hands and turned around slowly, ignoring her watchful eye as he remained motionless. She knew tears were impossible for him, as they always had been before, even with eyes, but she felt that strangely, in that moment, he had wanted so badly to do nothing other than cry. Either that, or tear apart what was left of the room. She stopped herself from comforting him too closely, and instead kept her hands at her sides, waiting for him to come back to her. She wanted him to accept his own need first.

Clenching his fists tightly against the pummeling nightmares in his head, he tried not to think about the girl standing behind him, and instead, found himself replaying the sound of his traitor's body dropping to the stones at the center of Mexico City, the sensation of her fingers, her mouth in places that he shuddered to think they had ever been. He couldn't imagine now why or how he had let himself get so close to her. The sex was some of the best he had ever enjoyed, but had there been more to it? She had taken it all from him, left him high and dry in the world, while she took the easy way out with an unexpected bullet. _Scheming whore…_he thought to himself, biting down on his lower lip so as not to shout and scare Lily, and then slowly moved to shuffle in her direction again.

"She was a daughter to the Cartel…_disguised_ just like me."

"Disguised as…" Lily tried, not fully understanding.

He heaved an angry breath, "AFN." Lily knew exactly what this meant, for him, for the CIA working the Cartel, for the entire situation. He had gotten in close, but in the worst of ways. He had shacked up with the enemy, while she pretended to be with the good guys. Bad news.

Without apologizing or trying to soothe the pain she could see riddling his face, she stepped in closely, and coughed before asking, "Did you…_love_ her?"

The question came more quickly than he had been prepared for. Through the darkness, he heard every hint of anxiousness, of almost jealousy in her tone, as well as the sprint of confusion, of sorrow. He had never known whether he loved her or not, whether the good times they had spent together, in their tiny room in the heart of Mexico City, were love or just a fixation of his constant boredom. No one had ever asked him whether he had loved a traitor or not, only if he had been_ with_ her. It sent a different jolt through him altogether, a strange, enigmatic one, one that revolted him even. The thought of having loved the woman who took his sight from him, who had taken what little he had of life from him, was disgusting, sinful even for a man with no faith. He winced at the inquiry once more, before tilting his head in her direction, before his lips began to part with the response.

And then a phone rang somewhere in the darkness, and he placed the answer on hold.

_Move your body, ooo baby…And dance all night._

_Do that groovin', feel all right. _

The tune interrupted everything instantly, with a strange glow of repressed giggling on Lily's face, as well as his own. As it went on, she waited for him to answer it, not thinking as clearly as she should. Eventually though, it struck her, the reality outside of the past they had been bordering in for a good half an hour, and she turned to find the phone that continued to sing to her.

_Move it up…_

_Turn it down…_

_Shake it down. _

After a few long seconds of searching through the mess of his bags and clothes, she found the phone hiding in the bottom of his jeans pocket, slung across the empty barstool. Taking it out, she fumbled nervously as it lit up: **Shy. **It was Shane. Ignoring that the call was for her blind accomplice in the room, she pressed the green button and pressed the phone to her ear, worried for some reason by it.

"Shane?"

"_Lily?" _It wasn't Shane at all. It was Andy.

"Yeah, it's me. Jeff couldn't find his phone."

"_Lily…you need to find Carter, get Sands now…"_

"Why? What's wrong? What happened…?" The worry in her voice fell through the room, catching Sands' attention as he crossed through the mess, tripping a few times, to come and take the phone from her.

"Miles?"

"_Sands…shit man; you need to get to the hospital now! It's your sister…Shane she…she got shot." _


	24. Used to the Pain

**Used To the Pain**

Tampa General Hospital – Emergency Room

_8:40 PM_

* * *

From the moment the phone slammed shut in his hand, to the second Carter answered the 6th floor knock in his boxers, to the very last instant that the automated doors of the emergency room opened up, Lily's hand never left Sands'. He held on tighter to her hand than he felt he ever had to another, lost in a strange, rushing daze of confused voices, panicked footsteps, and bright sparks over his patched world.

Miles gave them directions to the hospital and the floor number, but nothing more. At this his mind ran wild with possibilities, terrible images conjured in relation to his only sister, his only family, lain up in a cold room, tubes, needles scattered over her tiny form, a wound somewhere that he would never see himself. He couldn't even begin to guess what had gone wrong, and as his fingers clenched down harder into Lily's hand, his boots trampling at her side as the three of them jogged down the hallway toward the desk of the third floor, he knew exactly who he wanted to hear open their mouth, exactly who he wanted to do away with.

"…Shane Sands…yes…no…this is her brother." Carter's voice was moving a mile a minute out in front of him, responding, prodding for answers to the questions they were all thinking. The only thing he received though was the pointed finger of an already tired and angry nurses' assistant behind the desk.

"I'm sorry sir, can you please just have a seat in the waiting room and we'll--"

"You don't understand…she has a bullet wound…another friend of ours is already here with her."As he spoke, Jeff pulled Lily closer to where he heard the argument, coming to the counter, feeling the woman's breath in the air, sensing her anxious, haggard temper.

"You're going to have to fill out some paper work, have a seat in the waiting room--"

"No." He interrupted the two of them, angrily, squeezing Lily's hand rough at every jolt of energy in his system. "My sister could be dead by the time we sign your fucking paperwork. I want for you to tell me…where she is." He was growling in the face of the overweight, overstressed, and aging nurse that he couldn't see anyway. A few of the other nurses stared nervously at the confrontation playing out, the man who appeared to only half know which direction he was speaking in at all.

"Miss Sands is in the last room…at the end of this hallway." She replied harshly, not wanting to give in or release the information at all, but feeling she had no choice in light of the man before her.

"Thanks so _very_ much."He stammered back with a bark, tugging at Lily's hand for her to guide the way, as Carter stumbled out in front of the both of them.

They wandered for a few short seconds, past countless patients, some bleeding, others sleeping, all of them in pain, all of the noises disturbing Sands' mind for what he couldn't see. As they stepped in front of the small room she was being held in, they read the name tag, _S. Sands_, while Andy appeared in the window of the door, coming out.

A number of things began to occur simultaneously. The door creaked to allow him exit from the room, Danny sighed at the sight he must have been witnessing through the window, Lily's heart skipped a beat, her pulse streaming violently against the palm of his hand, and Andy Miles' hand came out to hold firmly, shortly, to Sands' shoulder.

"Jeff man…I'm--" He had not chance to complete his thought, he had no instance to apologize, or assure Sands' that Shane would be fine, or wouldn't be fine at all. There was simply no time at all for anything. Jeff's hand left Lily's, gripping firmly to Andy's opposite, limp arm, shoving back on his entire body, to where he imagined there must be a wall near the doorway, and forced his only slightly smaller body into it.

"You fucker!" He shouted, entrapping Andy's throat within his hands. The last bit of breath he was able to consume, left him immediately as he felt himself growing faint under the older agent, the angrier, impulsive, more dangerous agent's grip.

"Jeff don't…let him go!" Lily tried, but he refused. Danny attempted to pull him away, but again it did nothing to slow down the speed of his blood racing in his veins, the pent up emotion that had been trapped in his fists, his lungs, for almost an hour.

"You little shit…she was with you. She's in here because of you, Rookie!" He slammed Andy's head against the wall harder for a second time, as a few doctors and nurses came to break up the confrontation, with little success. "If my sister dies because you didn't fucking protect her…I'll kill you myself."

At this final squeeze, he released Andy's neck without assistance or resistance from any of the surrounding audience he could hear shouting, breathing. The younger agent fell in a crumpled mess to the tile floor, Danny helped him regain focus and standing, and Jeff, completely uncaring or worried about the damage he had done, reached his hand out for the only safety he had left.

Lily took hold of his hand again, warmly.

Ignoring everything but what he wanted, Sands gripped tighter and stepped closer to where she was, exhausting a final breath and request. "Take me to her."

She nodded, to which he didn't see, and then looked up at the man who she assumed was Shane's doctor, standing by their side silently, and he in turn nodded for her to take him into the room. Carter and Andy brushed aside, each stunned. Lily pushed her way through the door with Jeff's hand tight in her own, and in an instant the mood and scene changed. There, ten or so feet away was the girl she who had for so long, been the sister she never had…unconscious. Her throat grew into a bold lump, the tips of her fingers slid nervously in Jeff's palm, and as she inched the way in, she almost wished she had let someone else bring him inside. Death and tragedy of any kind were not dealt with so easily in her mind, they never had been, she had seen far too much of it, far too close to her.

In cordial step with her, Jeff managed to tap the edge of a close chair with his boot toe, and took a seat near where he heard the monitors beeping and his sister's shallow breathing.

_Thank Christ for at least that much…_he thought to himself, easing into the uncomfortable chair and reaching his free hand across the edge of the mattress until he could find her ice, cold hand. It felt like death, her knuckles protruding against his fingers and palm so differently than he could have possibly remembered. The difference between the sensation of Lily's hand in his other, and the comatose gloom of Shane's, made him go crazy inside, trying to understand how two hands, so similar in size, shape, texture, could be so far apart on the spectrum now.

The two girls who ever meant anything in his life, his sister and his lover, his best friends.

"Jeff…" Lily whispered over his head, standing at the side of the chair.

"Huh?" He mumbled back, too focused on the condition of his sister now.

"I'm going to step out and talk to the doctor, give you a while with Shane. Okay?"

He nodded silently and turned back to the respirator's noise.

"Jeff?" Lily interrupted him once more and his head jolted back to her voice. "You should talk to her…"At this he nearly scoffed inside, letting his face fall away and back to the direction his hand was at. Refusing to push him any further, Lily tucked her messy curls behind her ears, and stepped out of the room. Jeff listened to her go, regretting the absence instantly, as he sat listening to the dripping of fluids, the skipping of heartbeats, the sound of life outside of the doorway.

Inside, it was anything but.

* * *

**Hardin Memorial Hospital – Elizabethtown, KY**

**_April 23__rd_**_**, 1975** _

* * *

_There were 86 blue tiles from the front entrance of the hospital to the level his mother would end up on. Jeff remembered this. 86 blue tiles, and 103 small steps. He had been such a great counter, his mother had told him this, a dozen times that week in fact. She told him that when his little sister was born, that he would have to teach her how to count. He agreed he would. _

_It was early in the morning when his aunt had come over, helped his mother into the car, and taken them both to the hospital. He thought she was sick, and this frightened him. But before she left him at the hospital, before the nurse took her away, she assured him she would be fine. _

"_Sheldon, sweetie…Mommy has to go with the nurse." Her breathing was heavy, scary to him, but he nodded and tried not to cry. Being five years old meant he was too big to cry, in his mind he had to be strong for her. "Everything will be okay; they're going to help your baby sister. Stay with your Aunt Laura." Smiling down at him through what he would always remember was pain, she kissed his forehead, whispered her final 'I love you', and was rolled away through a heavy double doorway. _

_And that, was the last time he ever saw his mom. _

_Shane was never even that lucky. _

_The hours went on and on that day, sitting in a boring waiting room, speaking only when spoken to by his otherwise mean Aunt, doodling on white paper for a few minutes here and there, and spending the rest of his time watching through the curtained window into the busy hallway. He counted the doctors he saw, the women in wheelchairs like his mother, the babies. But she never came back out of the large doors. His sister never came out either._

_Eventually, he remembered falling asleep in one of the uncomfortable chairs and not waking up until his father arrived at the hospital and calmly shook him awake. It was an expression he would never forget, as long as he lived, the first, the only tears his dad ever shed. His eyes were red, puffy, wet, and Jeff didn't understand a thing about it. _

"_Jeffery…" He paused to wipe away further tears, pulling his son into his arms. "You're baby sister is here now." More crying as he walked with Jeff in his arms, out of the waiting room, and further down the hallway. He said nothing else until they made it to the end of the long corridor, at least three dozen more blue tiles, opposite from the big, doubled doors. They were moving away from his mother, farther away each step his dad made. Eventually, the doors disappeared, and in their place, was a giant wall of glass. Windows, full of babies. _

_As his dad propped him up in front of the glass, Jeff counted all of the blue blankets, all of the pink blankets. 12 boys and 13 girls. His eyes scanned as his father eventually pointed out into a distant corner, to where the thirteenth pink bassinet he counted, sat in peace. _

"_That's her Sheldon." The grown man, the professional looking man in the suit that held him up to the glass, his father, cried steadily as he spoke. "That's your little sister…Shane Marie." _

_In that moment, at five years old, Sheldon Jeffery Sands realized that he wouldn't see his mother again. That the little girl wrapped inside of the pink blanket, behind the glass, yawning, would replace the love he had for his mother. She would be his only honest admittance of love for the next eighteen years of his life. _

_He couldn't save his mother, but his sister would always be his to protect. _

_No matter the odds stacked against him. _

* * *

Lily wasn't an agent, and so she didn't quite understand yet what all of this meant. _Had Andy missed a shot to otherwise help Shane? Did Tuzla's men catch on to whatever got them shot in the first place? Were they being followed and hunted now? Did the CIA already have a counterattack set up somewhere, in the hotel, at the docks, right here in the hospital? Was this why Jeff tried to kill Miles the second he was within reach, was there a compromise by this bullet wound? _She didn't comprehend a single aspect, and found herself unable to shake the need to figure out at least some of it.

Once she left Shane's room in the silence she knew it would remain in, she took to pacing the floor, in search of one of two people. Depending on whom she found first, she would know whether to be as concerned as Jeff or be prepared to fight. Crossing in front of the central nurses' station mid-hallway, her eyes darted from one corner to the next, from the elevators, and then down a long, pale lit corridor. The sign on the wall read **WAITING ROOM **with a stark, blind man's arrow trailing along. She followed, knowing which of the men she would most likely see first.

Her hands tucked into the pockets of her corduroy jacket, she skimmed the faces of worried families, desperate patients in as much pain as she tried _not _to think of Shane having been in. And then, sliding one foot past the final patient room towards the glass entranceway of the sitting area, she was blocked by a friendly, brightened face. Not Andy's after all.

"I'm sorry, hello." He smiled, trying to help in lightening her own mood. It was the man she had recognized as the doctor from minutes past, and the man she also had wanted and hoped to find first.

"Hi."

"You must be a cop too, I assume? Or sister perhaps?"

She realized he was talking about Shane already, and shook her head to come back into the mode of reality. "N-no, I'm not a cop. Shane has just been a close family friend for years…"

"Oh, well excuse me."

"I'm a doctor actually."

"Is that right…?" He replied, the same glowing smile spread across his lips.

She wasn't sure if he was on some sort of a break or if he had been searching her out for the sole purpose of the one conversation she was dying for. As she stared up at him, a whole foot or more taller than she, Lily began to slowly see more to the doctor himself, things she missed in the quick welcome amidst Jeff's hallway battle. He was rather handsome actually, more of a Florida handsome than anything else, with wavy blonde locks tucked in behind his ears, shimmering teeth that made him look like a regular Hollywood star, and a tan that proved he had more days off than he was on call during the week.

Eventually, after staring at him longer than she would have liked, she managed to answer the lingering half question. "Yes. I'm a psychologist, in Washington."

"Wow." Another sparkling grin. "That's impressive."

"Is it?"She replied, almost blushing as he continued to shamelessly flirt his way around the seriousness of her being there.

"Absolutely. You don't seem old enough."

"Oh…well, I guess 29 is the new 40 then."

"I guess so…" He sighed and leaned against the doorway he had come from. Lily though was determined to find out more about Shane's condition, whether she had to undress the doctor for the answers or not.

"I was hoping to find you for a minute Doctor…" she paused, waiting for his fill in.

"Hayes."

"Dr. Hayes, is Shane going to be alright?"

He stopped for a moment and stood tall again, a few manila folders in one hand and a continuously clicking pen in the other. Being a psychologist though, it did little to drive her over the edge…yet.

"She's going to be just fine. The bullet I removed from her lower back must have been fired from a weaker gun, it certainly didn't penetrate the skin very much. The lucky part was its location. One centimeter farther to the left, and it would have probably splintered her coccyx. That would have been a bit more difficult…"

"But she's not waking up, is she in a coma?"

"No…no. She's just sleeping off the anesthesia from surgery. Another half an hour or so and she should be wide awake and hopefully smiling some."

Lily exhaled deeply, wiping the hair away from her face.

"Shane is just going to need a lot of rest…no more firing squads this month…"

He grinned down at her, and with a soft laugh, she smiled back. It was good news, not perfect news, but good enough for now. At least Shane would be alright. Whether it meant Jimmy would be taken down or not, was still left to be seen. But for now, having everyone alive was the important thing. Without realizing it, she had slowly begun looking away from the doctor's face, and when she re-focused, he was speaking again.

She heard none of it.

"I'm sorry, what?" She asked politely, innocently.

He chuckled and stepped to her side, "I was just wondering if you had a name to go by. Or are you just 'The Shrink'?"

"Oh," she giggled shamefully, "My name's Lily."

"Lily…My mother's name was Lily." She tried to ignore the consistent flirtation with only a snicker or two of smiles, but found the doctor pressing even further. "You look like you could use a cup of coffee, Dr. Lily. Feel like joining me?"

"Uhm…" no response was coming to her, nothing short of being rude to the man who had saved her friends life only an hour before.

Part of her began to follow him, her foot crossing out in the direction his was, a smile on her face as he led her down towards the lounge. And certainly, if it hadn't been for the soft ringing in the pocket of her jeans, she might have continued on, taken the short coffee date with the Matthew Machonahey, look-a-like surgeon. But instead, she stopped to flip out Jeff's cell phone.

_**SHY**_

At first it was perplexing, and then she saw the blinking text message, and quickly read it as she noticed the doctor waiting on her. _**I'm awake bitches, come entertain me. **_Laughing, she glanced up to the handsome blonde's face as he looked back confused.

"She's awake."

A second later, she felt a hand on her back and another, different voice above her head. "Let's go Freud…we've all been summoned." Carter pulled her along, not having realized it was Shane's doctor before them, and together with Andy, they jolted down the hallway and back to her room.

With a near gust of wind, the door flew open and they piled in to see the aforementioned messenger, wide awake and smiling, sitting up, her cell phone attached to her palm, and Jeff sitting at her side, still glumly listening in.

Lily watched Andy dart to one side of the bed, while Carter stood down at the end, tapping wildly on Shane's feet beneath the blanket. "Go on and scare the shit out of us this week why don't you?" He chuckled, taking a seat by her feet then.

Shane smiled at both of the guys, and then darted her eyes away to catch Lily's. "Cute isn't he?"

"Who?"

"Dr. Hayes…" she sighed in a forced exaggeration, Andy stiffening at her side. "That face was the last thing I saw before they put me out."

Lily laughed and came to her side with a step around Jeff's chair. Taking Shane's hand, she also patted her head affectionately and watched the monitors above.

"Good to know that bullet wounds don't hinder your good spirits."

"It takes a lot to keep me down, Hanson. Don't pretend like you don't remember that much."

"I do." She replied with a quick smile, brushing Shane's cheek. "I'm glad you're okay, Shane, it's just…"

"What?"

"What were you thinking…?"

"I was thinking…that I could get him easily. That mansion of his is hardly blocked at all. Andy had a clear lead where my shot was. We almost had it perfect."

Lily shook her head quietly as she sat next to her on the bed. "But you got hurt."

"Oh this is nothing…I'm used to this kind of pain. Give me a day to sleep it off, and we can drive back down there."

At this, the room grew silent, all manner of previous discussion and smiles around the bed, diminished. Lily turned her head back to see Jeff sitting with his tilted down toward the floor, his boots crossed the way they only were when he was anxious and didn't want to discuss something, and his hands twisted together. Andy and Carter too were shut down by her determination to return to the Tuzla estate after the earlier run in. Shane though, interrupted all of their thoughts, knowing them all too well.

"Don't everyone approve at once."

"Shane…" Lily and Andy interrupted at the same time, glancing over to allow the other one access. "There's no way you're ready to go back out there. Let Danny and I handle this one…the doctor says you gotta rest."

"Yeah, right." She laughed at the two of their concerned faces. "This is my case. This is my guy."

"_Our_ guy." Jeff corrected her solemnly, in a hushed murmur.

"You son of a bitch…you're not even supposed to be down here."

"But I am." He replied again, quiet, ignoring the battle in her tone as he adjusted his glasses higher.

"You can't just let me have one, can you?"

No one spoke, Carter and Andy moved to the opposite end of the long suite, and Lily moved out of the line of conversational fire to take a seat in the corner beside Jeff, listening in patiently.

"Jack gave me Tuzla for a reason, Jeff. He knows I can pull it off…I know I can pull this thing off. One stupid bullet in my back isn't going to keep me from tearing this guy apart."

"This isn't about letting you handle this thing on your own."

Shaking her head at him, Lily watched her eyes grow weak with tire and stress, pain she tried to hide as well as her brother. It was amazing to her still, the way their minds fashioned together, the way Shane and Sheldon were often times one. It was how they had survived life all this time.

"What's it about then?" She asked him angrily, as her needle prodded arms flew across the mattress at him.

"Jesus Christ Shane…" He stammered with a leap from his chair, walking aimlessly around in a circle, counting steps from bed to table, table to window, and back again. "…how much more do you think we can fucking take? You run off with Fruit Loop to take down Tuzla alone…? What are you a damn babysitter now for the Agency now?"

"We almost had him, we just missed--"

"It doesn't matter!" He shouted back in a slide back to the bed as he leaned against it. Lily could hear his labored breathing as it met with Shane's own, and biting her nails to contain the nervous energy of the moment, she followed everything. "You're doing this all wrong…and you damn well know it. Your heads in the wrong place for it, Shy."

"I want revenge. Seems like a good place to me. Same place as you and Lily." She spat back at him, as they quarreled inches away over the mattress.

"He wouldn't want us to fight like this…Tommy wouldn't want you going into this thing without the right idea about it. You and I both know that…he'd fucking shoot us both if something happened. And look, something did."His hands waved off the machines he could only hear higher up from his face, and as he stood tall away from the bed again, he paced to a halt, facing where he recognized Lily's shallow breathing.

"You and I are trained to protect ourselves Shane, but you know he won't be after the two of us alone. We lost one Hanson to this cocksucker already…we don't need to lose another. I won't let him take the other."

Her heart dropped as she felt the power of his invisible stare upon her face, as she watched the veins in his hands protrude with his own anger in stating such a fact aloud. Neither of them said anything else, until Shane broke through the silence.

"Lily said she wanted to fight."

More silence.

"She can fight, Jeff. Lily…"Glancing across to Shane with detrimental fear in her eyes, she tried to imagine what her friend was saying, what she was plotting. "You're as tough as any of us. Talk about pain…if there's one thing you've got on your side, it's that. Tommy was your brother."

"Enough." Jeff tried, still facing away from Shane and toward Lily. He was determined to have it dropped once and for all, and yet Shane had other plans, always.

"No. You can't see the look on her face right now, can you? So shut the fuck up, because I can. I can see she wants it; she wants to fight for Tommy. Isn't that the whole damn reason she got on that plane with us?"

"For Christ's sake, stop with this shit…" He spun back on his boots, focused on his words better now, "…what kind of an example are you? You're a trained CIA operative, and you got yourself shot in the ass tonight!"

"And you let some punk ass AFI chick rip yours eyes out!"

"I really never noticed how suicidal you've become."

"I learned from the best…_Bro_…"

"Stop it." The voice was quiet, forceful, and determined against the best. Jeff stepped down from his mountain of anger with Shane, and held a firm stance between the bed and Lily's voice. Shane peered around him at the sound she knew too well, the sound of frustration, the sound of complacency.

"I'm so tired of hearing you two argue over this same issue…this stupid mistake that I made to come here. It was ridiculous. I've never done anything like this before in my life, I would never think of doing it either…"

Standing to pace at Jeff's side, then onto where Carter and Andy stood near the doorway, listening, she pondered her thoughts play by play.

"I found Carter's folder, and I…I don't know I guess I just lost my mind when I saw his name on that paper, Tuzla. Eight years…I've wanted to kill him myself for that long. I was jealous of you guys…for getting to fill the vengeance I had inside of me." Her eyes grew wet slowly, but she dry them quick and finished as she stood at Shane's bedside. "I want nothing more than to see this fucker gone. You're right; I want to be the one to kill him, Shane. I'll learn whatever I have to, I'll do it all, just…let me finish this with you. I need it…"


	25. Feel That Fire

**Feel That Fire**

Three Days Later...

Thursday - January 22nd, 2004

4:22 AM, En Route

* * *

Cold again, but only half so much as when they had first arrived. As Lily stood at the curb of the valet, waiting for the rest of them to come out from breakfast, she watched the wind in the darkened trees pick up with the beat of the small buds inside of her ears. It was some new band Shane had insisted on her listening to, an attempt if ever she saw one, to be extradited from the old classics she so loved. Shane, unlike Lily, was fresh on the market of 'what was cool.' The hours spent in the hospital during her night stay on Monday, had given the two women the chance to find each other again, the wild friendship they used to cling to like crazy. And when she had healed enough to be released on Tuesday afternoon, Lily was right there waiting for her. Shane was as much her sister as she was Jeff's, again.

With her hands in her pockets, she tried to focus on the words of the song she was listening to, but found it next to impossible when two warrior boots stomped down on the pavement beside her. Leaving the buds in and the music on high for another moment, she glanced up to see Danny smiling down and sideways at her, his hands in the pockets of his own jacket. He said nothing, only waited beside her, watching the wind, the expensive cars passing. Wondering if there was perhaps a point to his closeness, she tugged the earphones out as the song slowed, and looked back to him with a knowing, anxious sort of smile.

"What's up?" He finally asked, chuckling.

Rubbing her already red nose, she shook her head. "Not the sun yet."

"Soldiers get up before the sun, Hanson."

"Oh so I'm a soldier all of a sudden?"

"Well, I guess that truly remains to be seen." They laughed together quietly, and watched as a few of the valets fought over who would drive a Maserati to the garage. He turned back to her eventually.

"I wanted to tell you Lily, that, I think what you're willing to do for your brother's falling…I think it's pretty cool. You've got guts I didn't imagine."

She smiled in an almost embarrassed fashion and thanked him quietly.

"It'll be fine, I'll train you good."

"You?"

"Yeah, these other pricks with guns are just show offs. I'll help you keep your head in the scheme of things."

Agreeing with a grateful, warm nod and smile, they were both interrupted by the sound of the hotel's automatic side doors whooshing open with the remaining three agents. Andy was ahead of them with two large duffel bags, and Shane lead Jeff, who was also helping her to stand in her weakness.

"I hope you're ready for this Lily." Shane belted.

The single SUV was parked and waiting for them, where Andy threw the stuff in the back. It had been his own idea to stick with one car, for simple safety precautions at this point in the game. Lily yawned with a shake of her head toward the group, climbing into the back seat with Carter to her left, and a moment later, Jeff to her right.

He had hardly spoken to her or any of them in three days. The last thing he had said to her, in any respect of meaningfulness, had been on the phone the previous afternoon. She had called to check up on him, his leg, his head, as any good doctor would do. He had told her simply, "I'm good. Thanks" and then hung up quickly.

The rollercoaster continued still, the up and down, close and far away of their relationship's rekindling. Even with formal training, a doctorate in Psychology from Harvard University, she couldn't understand it.

After a few minutes of argument that she could hardly make out in her extreme tire, the truck pulled away from the curb of the hotel and narrowed its fast pace through the winding highway a second later. By the time they were high above the city on the expressway, she was ready to collapse. The coffee at breakfast had done nothing for her. The cold shower earlier hadn't helped.

4:30 a.m. had never been her friend, especially now in a car full of agents, heading off to be trained to kill. The very thought weakened her, and as she felt Andy tap the gas a little harder, a little smoother, she let go of the weight her head was capable of, and found it sliding against the back of the seat, towards a shoulder. By the time it hit the surface though, she was out, and had no idea whether it had fallen to her left and onto Carter's shoulder, or to the right, and onto the shoulder of the man who had little concern for where her head landed or didn't land.

Sands, half asleep himself, jumped at the immediate fall of her head to his shoulder. He hadn't expected that, or even known her to have been that tired. It never sounded in her voice, or her breathing at breakfast. Shock washed over him; a strange, exotic, beautiful shock at that, something he wanted too badly to admit it and something that shouldn't have confused him or covered him so much. The simple drop of a sleepless head had the capability to undo him at the seams, and he hated to know such a thing in himself. The sex, this had been great. It had always been the best with her. But since the hospital, and since Shane and Lily had decided to exclude his opinion from the commitment to save certain lives and alter others, he hadn't given her a single piece of himself, nothing to attach to.

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the radio, the sound of the wind against the car windows, the shallow tone of Shane's snickering from the seat in front of him. It was all too much to bear in his position. He had only come along on the training excursion to tell the four of them that 'he told them so', when Lily shot herself in the foot. He wanted to hear it, the sound of a bullet through a toe, or a finger, or even just through her favorite jacket. Sands needed her to understand that she wasn't ready to be a CIA agent and that a day of training wasn't going to do anything but worry her more. He wanted them to realize that in the end, he would have to be the one to kill Tuzla anyway. And yet, as badly as he had cherished the late night idea of defying her on this day, his head was spinning with the soft scent of early lilac in her hair, on her skin, all around him.

Killing him silently.

_You can do so much better than this…_he told her in telepathic stride, begging her to wake up and realize her position, and that it was hardly any good for her own health anymore. _I'm just a fucking prick. I was before…I am now…Jesus, I don't need this kind of guilt. Kill yourself if you want…but don't make me fall for you on the way there…_

Another twenty minutes passed before the truck was slowing into place, with three other bodies scrambling, and one, tired, weak face digging into his shoulder as Lily stirred awake with pause in movement. Her hand had fallen to his thigh as she woke up against him, half smiling, half regretting it. Jeff said nothing back to her as she apologized and slid across to the opposite door to follow Carter out. He sat there, listening to the door open and close, the bags of weaponry in a half dozen hands. And he found himself concentrating on one simple detail through all of it, the faintest trace of lilac left sitting on the sleeve of his jacket.

_I could taste that scent…that god awful, perfect smell._

From outside, in the hazy morning sky of grays and purples, Lily could see a few blinking plane lights, but still no sun. Andy had parked the truck in the middle of a narrow, ancient by-street of some kind, where the pavement was horribly cracked with desertion and grass grew out from the splinters of cement between. There was a dusty field lined with old railroad tracks straight ahead, a derelict brick factory building of some sort, and in the long distance of the turf, was early morning Tampa Bay, lit fashionably against the charcoal clouds. Had she not been so tired, this area would have fascinated her, the darkness of it, the neglect of fifty or more years, the silence of only wispy palm trees, high grasses, and the truck's still running engine behind her.

She glanced back and saw Shane and the other guys working with a few different guns on the hood of the car, shadows between its glowing headlights, and Jeff inside, unmoving. Part of her could have gone back at that point, pulled him out, talked to him, and said anything necessary about the continuing awkwardness. But Carter's smile with a firm hand on a large automatic weapon and vest, kept her from making up her mind.

"Let's get you suited up, Lil."

She grinned back and followed him across the short street to the open field, noting that with each step, it grew just a little bit lighter outside. Carter took to getting her into the vest with a few leg pads, all of which were heavy for their necessity. She didn't complain though, and had to admit that for a moment or two, Danny's touch, the gentle caress of his hand on her thigh or arm, was peaceful, warm, welcomed in her absence of such feelings from another.

"I know you're gonna kick ass at this shit, Doc. You're a Hanson; it's in your blood. Should have never doubted it before."

"I'm glad your confidence runs so deep, Danny. I'm going to need the reassurance when I shoot someone on accident."

Without warning, and perhaps without need for one, came to stand just behind her, his arms around her waist as he finished fastening the vest straps from front to back tightly. In her ear, his warm breath flew through her hair with the cool wind.

"I would gladly take a bullet from you."

"Oh, good." She replied trying to catch her bearings before her head spun out of control too far. "Then why don't you go stand out there by the tracks and I'll give you your wish ahead of schedule."

One more laugh, another fasten of a strap, and he patted her gently on the butt of her jeans before smirking and walking back towards the truck for something.

"Don't kill anyone without me."

"Don't hold your breath."

With the gun slung in her arm to the side, as far away as she could keep it from herself, Lily watched carefully as Shane hobbled far out into the field with Andy, their shadows dancing in the still moonlit grasses, setting up some sort of targets. She looked back in hopes of seeing Danny with another bag of guns, or a smile, or anything but what she did catch walking towards her.

In the darkness of the trees and flickering streetlamp, his glasses gave him an even more sinister appearance, one of a criminal, a vixen. She did not grin, or think, or practice a speech of any kind, she only kept her eyes trained on his cat-like sense of direction and step through the littered grass, drawn into his every slight movement of form. Time doubled, sped up, and a second later, she could smell his cologne in the frozen air, and hear his breathing throughout her head. He said nothing at first, apparently not needing to, and instead stood listening to his surroundings, getting a sense of her hesitant demeanor. Her breathing pattern alone, gave him the justification for speaking he needed.

"How's the vest?" He asked solemnly.

"Fine."

"You sure about that? Doesn't really sound _fine_."

Shaking her head in his direction, she moved her hand down to the straps, the rigidity of her chest bound inside, her lagging breath only now recognized as something other than nervousness around him.

"It's just a little tight, that's all."

"May I?" He offered, holding out a hand toward her as she stepped closer.

She examined the way his fingers ran along the front of the vest, ripping back the ties and straps one by one. Each one he loosened brought her body closer to his, the scent of him harsh, the warmth of his arms in and around her waist and back too perfect for words even. It was the opposite of Danny, because with Jeff, it was indescribable.

Literally.

As quickly as he had started, the vest and padding had been loosened for added breathing room, and she was relived in ways she had not known she needed before his arrival. When he stepped back to catch his balance again, she looked at his face, seeing only a pale satisfaction under the silence.

"You sure you don't want to help me out with this stuff? I'll bet you're still ten times better than anyone."

He stood quietly in front of her as he reached into the back pocket of his jeans, retrieving a ragged old baseball cap, one she knew the very scent of and every stitch between. His boots kicked through the grass as he walked off to her side, and out of surprise, he tugged the hat down onto her head, again, for the second time this trip. It smelled the same, dirty, old, the way she liked it. It covered her eyesight for a minute and by the time she had gotten it on well enough to see him, he was a good five feet beyond her, walking off slowly into the dark field, toward the brick building. Something told her it would be the last time she saw him for the day, and this was not _so far _off the mark.

When Carter came back to her to begin the first round of firing, she tugged the cap back down to cover her eyes a way, and recognized in the scent of his hair through the weaving of its Boston age, that the hat was his help for her. It was his luck, all that he had ever known, given to her.

Knowing this, with a smile, she used its power to every advantage throughout the day. Shane and Andy stood off clear from the marks, watching, betting, cheering her on as she slammed target after target, destroying them far worse than any of them had pictured, cutting through cardboard and bottles alike. The rifle, perched on her arm, was triggered by her own finger, controlled by her head, her sense of self awareness in the matter, by her own need to finish off everything she had fought for too long, the pain, the loneliness, the desire for revenge. Every bullet, every hit, every mark thrown to the ground with a growl of cheering, with Danny's enthusiasm and rippling laughter, was one step closer to getting the one man she needed, the target she wished to stand before.

"I told you she would kill with the 9 millimeter, man!" Danny shouted over to where the other two were sitting on the hood of the truck, slamming back more beer for targets. "You owe me fifty bucks rookie!"

"Yeah, yeah. Bottles don't move. Drug lords do!"

Immediately drawn away from the last fire of the gun at Andy's words, Lily's head flipped back with a smile of conviction in what she was doing, and Carter patted her back with another round for her to fire off.

"God…this is what control feels like!?" She screamed at the top of her lungs, watching the bullets strike each individual bottle lined up twenty feet away, the gun trembling with excitement in her hands, pressed to her cheek.

"No wonder my brother wanted to do this!"

Shane howled in response, watching her perfection in aim, in stability of the gun's hold, in her every movement. She was, no doubt, her father's child, and Tommy's little protégé. A maniac at firing guns, her lunacy hidden behind a medical dictionary and prescription pad. There was a freedom surrounding Lily's form out in the distance as she watched on, a rebellion long since tied up, and only now brought out again by the same person who brought it out before. Shane wasn't as oblivious as her brother and Lily would have probably liked her to be, and because of this, she saw a depth to the tough reunion that they simply did not. This depth, this further meaning, was detailed by the obvious hope of longevity despite all of their temporary bouts of hatred for each other.

"She got the travel mug, babe." Andy whispered beside her on the hood, his arm fashioned warmly around her tiny waist, and his lips at her ear. "You owe me ten bucks."

Laughing, she pushed him away with a sinister glare, "Or I could just tell Jeff what you've been up to with his little sister."

"I think I'd rather be one of Lily's targets."

They turned back with laughter to the final round of her shots, both knowing as well as Danny out in the field with her, that she was more than ready for whatever they needed from her. Lillian Hanson, M.D, was as prepared to be a tag along for the CIA as anyone before her. Tuzla would no doubt meet his match, if not by their own hands, at least by her steadied one.

It was another two hours or so before they had completed their training for the day, which continued to include working on her already perfect aim, as well as practicing footwork in the event of any sort of showdown between her and the aforementioned wanted men. Danny taught her how to break free from a strong hold, Shane drilled her on high speed chases as they weaved in and out of the empty lot and subsequent streets, and Andy even helped her understand the nature of Tuzla a little bit better with his array of collected information.

Lily felt as if she had known the insides of the case as long as they, and even more so, felt confident she could help them the way she had so wished from the beginning. When Shane began to get restless for food, they decided to start packing up for the day, promising that they would give her another full seminar of the same sort tomorrow.

While the guys loaded the trunk with all of the equipment, Shane took to ordering Chinese pick-up and sent Lily off to go finds Sands. In the events of the day, the focus, the drive she had gained, her thoughts about him had all but diminished and it had never occurred to her that he hadn't come strolling back from the building at all.

After changing out of her jeans and into and into a warm weather approved sundress, which was confidently matched with her black biker, warrior boots, she walked slowly off into the field's distance. The high grass brushed against her legs where she lifted the skirt of her dress, her skin sensitive to the lowering sun, and her eyes fixed on the corner of the falling brick walls as she walked in and around its path. Stopping to glance up into one of the leveled windows of the third floor, she covered her eyes from the glowing brightness, and tried to determine whether he was inside or out, watching her or not. She stepped around a few large chunks of brick, stones, more grass and piles of metal, until she came about the shadowed corner of the backside to the building.

He wasn't there.

Running her hand through her hair and placing Jeff's hat back on, she searched off where she could see Shane and the guys still packing up the truck, with no sign of him there either. She began to move again, stepping carefully through fallen wood, shattered glass, and remnants of life, on a hunt for someone she knew probably didn't want to see her anyway. The sun was shining brighter around the corner, and it was as she stepped over a large, useless old tire, that she saw smoke cascading in the warm wind. Her head flipped around the curve of the building and she found the source, who strangely, had found her first.

"I had a feeling they'd send you sooner or later."

He spoke deeply, with one last drag of his smoke. Lily watched without saying anything, instead too focused on the way his boot crushed the ashy butt into the dirt and his silhouette curved into the orange light of the Florida sunset. It was a much different brightness than she was used to seeing him in, a southern glow, his Ray Ban shades both blocking and redirecting the luminosity, as he stood leaning against the brick, hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, a blank expression on his face as she walked toward him slowly.

"We're heading back to the hotel now."

He remained still as she inched closer.

"The guys are packing up," she tried again with a clear cut statement, receiving no response and pausing only feet away with the sun to her bare back and dress circling around her legs with the grass. "And Shane's ordering food."

When he didn't respond to any of it, she turned away to leave him, too tired to bother with his attitude. And to this, he finally spoke again.

"What, no offer of help for the blind guy?"

"I thought you said you didn't need my help."

"I don't." He answered quickly, forcing her to spin back and continue to move away. "But…" he stopped her again. "…I'm surprised you didn't at least try."

"I'm done trying." She whispered back in angered peace. "I've resolved to let you just _be._ It's what you seem to want, your independence. I can respect that."

Again, she was shocking him in ways he hadn't anticipated at all. Her determination to give him the bane of his desires, his independence, his self esteem to follow through without assistance, he was impressed by her in this matter all of a sudden. Lily had understood him somehow, to cave in and grant him the space he had asked for, and yet little did she realize that his earlier demand, had cached itself into something new, something more trusting than before.

His vulnerability had gotten the better of him in the heat of the afternoon sun, lonely and thinking for hours, listening to the sound of bullets being fired into glass, knowing that the cheers were for her all along and that she was ready to fight the way she claimed. The same way she refused to give up on Tommy's memory and the death of a guilty man, who had ruined a corner of her life, she also refused to give up on him, whether he realized it soon enough or not. And standing against the heat of the falling daylight, listening to the sound of her breathing, the glass cracking under her shoes, the overgrown weeds blowing against her body the way he could imagine, Sands knew also that it broke him in a million different places to hear her admit to stepping down and away from him. To hear her say she was surrendering from her attempts to help him, to save him from himself.

"I really have tried everything, Jeff. Earlier this week, before Shane got hurt, I truly thought I'd made a breakthrough with you. That night I thought I had helped you to at least see some light in your situation. But you're right back to where you were when you first stepped in my office. This dark,_ twisted_ place you go all the time. And I think that I'm only making it worse for you, in fact…I know I am. And I'm sorry for that."

She watched him shake his head and move away from the building, his boots digging into the dirt the same as his hands in his pockets. The weakness in her knees was formulated by the rise and fall of his chest against the form fitting white t-shirt he wore, the way his hair sat at the nape of his neck in a tie, and the way he bit his lip in thought and then turned to face her. Lily tried so desperately at times like these to imagine him without the glasses, to remember his eyes just once, how perfectly they shone in the afternoon, how they would tell her everything she ever needed to know without a sound or stutter.

"I thought of telling Jack that I couldn't help you, I thought about explaining all of this to him. But because I tend to follow the righteous path, and because I've taken to masochism so well in the last few years, I told myself I could handle it and help you. I've wanted to help you, selfishly, against your will."

"Stubborn by birth." He replied quietly.

She laughed, looking to him with water filling the corners of her eyes. "Yeah." She returned, "I tried to tell myself that too. But stupid me, the challenge was too good to pass up."

"I'm a good challenge?"

Wiping the hair from her face and taking off his old cap, she walked towards him closer, whispering. "The best I've had in a long time."

He chuckled and counted her steps, feeling her hand around his wrist a moment later, pulling his hand from his jeans. It was softer than even the days, the weeks, the years before, the softest her hand had ever been, assuredly. He felt her shove something into his palm, the spooned bill of his old hat, and roll his fingers over it in a clamped position.

"I'm just returning your luck to you, safely." A smooth sigh left her lips as she moved her hand away again. "You're going to need it to get back to the truck."

And a second later, he recognized the sound of her boot heels spinning into the graveled dirt, against the grass, in a fashion of exit from their conversation, from the building's opposing privacy. His mind clicked instantly, and with his freed hand, he reached out to snap her small wrist between his fingers, pulling her back to him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Her eyes shone with curiosity as she looked at his smiling face, the brightness in his cheeks catching her almost off guard. She heard Shane's voice from a distance, calling around the other side of the building and down the street from the car, _"Let's go Lily! Jeff!"_

Trying to pay it no mind, she glanced down to see his fingers growing softer around her wrist, twisting along until they met with her own, coiled for the insurance of the moment. There were more calls, the sound of the wind picking up around their heads, an engine starting through the brick hideaway and broken windows. And somehow, none of it quit the patience of his smile, the longing of his hand in hers.

"What would you like me to do then?" She asked sarcastically.

Tugging her hand in a separate direction, his other arm coming around to hold her waist tight against his hips, Sands easily lifted her body and barreled in a return to the wall he studied the distance of, pressing into her timid chest, her burning neck.

"You could start with holding back on the screaming…" He whispered at her ear, the curls from her lilac scent covering his nose and face. "…Unless you want an audience for this."

While one arm remained in a hold of her body, his other left her hand to move to the unfastening of his jeans. Lily could faintly hear and feel the movement between her thighs as he finished with the button and zipper of his own barricade. And then his creeping, delicate fingers traced up and along her tender skin, searching out the waistband of her panties, and pulling them down and off in a quick, nearly unnoticeable flash.

Set along the tight denim, she felt the hardened throb of his cock as it swiped against her center and inner thighs with every grind he made. She moaned out at the sensation as his hand travelled up her arm to reach for the thin straps of her dress, pulling them down as well to reveal her breasts in the sun. With his glasses falling off of his battle wounded eye sockets, she reached up to push them back on for him, as he slid his own fingers into his mouth with a wicked grin, and returned their wet tips to the firm peak her nipple had formed, caressing roughly for a moment and then softer, habitually.

Her legs hugged his waist harder, clenching around him as her bare back arched against the scaling brick. A louder, still sound proof moan escaped her lips as she watched his mouth move down to her breast, his tongue flicking harshly against the agitated peak.

"Jeff…" she sighed above his head, her arms gripping tight to the back of his neck, pulling him as close to her as she could.

He laughed as he left her chest to cover her widened, begging mouth. "Did you say something?"

His joke was hardly welcomed in her weakness, but before she had a chance to express her agitation, his tongue had forced its way between her sweetened lips, drilling along the insides of her mouth with haste. And in this also, while her ability to speak or think was otherwise occupied, he let one hand return to his own pleading length, and stroked hard at the tip, bringing it closer to where he felt himself slide against her drenched, heated opening. Groaning to meet her own desperate pleas at his mouth, he felt no reason to hold back any further, and made fast headway through her soaked folds, thrusting into her trembling, warm body in a quick jolt. Her head immediately heaved backwards, only to be quickly and telepathically caught in his palm, missing the rough brick.

With one subjective breath, he found himself chuckling over nothing but his own confidence in the matter, and a clear second later, felt her body clench around his stiff organ as he melted into her with another agonizing groan.

"Go ahead…" he teased sharply as he felt himself drawing back out of her. His brow tightened in an honest desperation to see her face, to know what her eyes were thinking. And then, unable to confine his thoughts to just his own mind any longer, he leaned down into her neck and found himself biting against her heated skin, "…scream it."

In the middle of comprehending his words, Lily sensed her body rattling with pain and pleasure all at once as he thrust deeper back within her, shoving her entire body, wrapped inside of his, into the building's outer wall. Her nails dug into the thin cotton of his dampened shirt, pressing at his shoulder blades, causing his hips to arch into her at a different, more longing angle, and graze against the one spot she knew he could always find.

"Jeff!"

She shouted it with another woven thrust, and when his hand moved down to manipulate the situation of her pulsing clit, probing it, stroking it at the same momentum and rhythm of his length inside of her, she screamed out again. She accepted her own death in that moment, the death of the most utterly disgusting and altogether perfect pleasure any one person had ever known.

"Again…" He begged with haggard breathing into her ear. "…louder."

"Ah, J…Jeff yes!"

The smile was plastered on and around his entire face as he kept the speed at an ideal rate, one he had remembered being only half as good at eight years before. Their display was one that could have surely sent a person into shock upon seeing it, in the plain sight of late afternoon. But here, secluded with the abandonment of high grasses and a broken factory, it was the best he believed he had yet known. And that was truly saying a lot. He pressed inside of her again, taking with him the predisposing heat and suction of her pinnacle necessity, and gripping her hips tighter against his own; he continued to demand of her until the end.

"Now, let go…come."

For whatever reason in this world or the next, that did it for her. With his hands anxiously holding her to him, his shaking, still rock solid form inside of her, she released the chasm of everything she knew, screaming his name, his praises in the process. The shuddering blow of her body synced around him made Sands tremble into the spiral of his own surrender, squeezing the aching flesh of her thighs for support and letting everything he had flow deep and warm inside of her.

"Lily…"

He retracted in honest complacency into the softness of her clammy breasts, his forehead rolling on her skin as his chest rose and fell with hers. She held him there, gladly, her fingers spun through the web of his blackened hair. Soon enough, she felt him slide out from within her, but remain in place, holding her to him, to the wall, to the blockade of his will to admit what he was feeling.

"_Lily!"_

"_Jeff!"_

It was no longer their own pleads for one another, but the annoyed tone of those waiting on them in the distance, calling in through windows and doors, around corners, and across the open field that separated them from the car. Again, they ignored it as Sands lifted his head from her chest, tucked himself into his jeans and held her waist calmly, helping her back down to her feet. In doing this though, Lily found trouble in simply standing, as her knees and feet gave out in a heady loss of blood, and in an instant saw herself falling towards the ground. She missed it by only a few inches when Jeff sensed the trouble and reached down to grab her waist again, helping her to stand and catch her balance again.

"Cliché'." She stated simply as she clung to his strong arms. "You make me weak in the knees."

He chuckled and held her to him even harder, kissing the top of her head where he felt it settled under his chin. "Too weak to continue this back at the hotel?"

"Never that weak."

He felt her arms leave his as she bent to pick up what he'd thrown from her ankles to the dirt, and while waiting to know that she had them back on safely, he felt her hand tuck into the back pocket of his jeans, shoving the garment inside.

"For me?" He laughed, knowing the condition they were in and trying to picture the color.

"My best pair."

Lily grabbed his hand and pulled him away from their place and back around the side of the building from where she had come, through the open field of tires and grass, and in a saunter to the truck, where three angry, hungry agents stood waiting.

Three agents who never seemed to hear a thing at all.


	26. Don't Stop Believing

**Don't Stop Believing**

**PART 1:**

_Hard Rock Hotel – 7:30_

* * *

"Stupid…fucking…thing."

Struggling to keep his tongue and mouth at hers and reach through darkness for the card slide on the door of the room, Jeff growled, sucking at her lips as he held her against the wall nearest the doorknob, his knee pressing between her separated thighs. He didn't give a damn who saw the inappropriate movement; in fact, he rather enjoyed the thought of an audience.

"It won't open."

Lily laughed at him as she pulled away from his lips and moved her hand to where his was forcing the key card through the slot in the doorway rather than the lock.

"Let me do it, or we'll be in the hall all night."

She took the card as he pushed her harder against the wall, licking clear from her open breasts to the back of her ear without stopping.

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Or the last with you I fear."

She smiled and forced the key to click and unlock the door. Jeff lifted her body in a turn toward the dark room, slamming her back into another wall as soon as they were inside. His hands kept firm at her waist, sliding in ease against the sides of her dress as it lifted higher on her thighs.

He hadn't planned to take her at the corner of the doorway, pressed into the cool stones of the wall. He hadn't wanted it to be so violent or sudden. He had concocted the idea much better on the ride back to the hotel, but his desperation and his body's unwillingness to cooperate were making it difficult on him. He had to bring himself to stop though, because he had to make his reasoning work, he had to make her understand tonight instead of just accepting things forever.

Falling away from slowly, her lips still clinging and begging for his rather than oxygen, he held her to the wall. Lily eyed him suspiciously, worried that she had done something wrong already.

"I think we need to talk first."

His statement was focused, driven, and as serious as she had ever seen him. It was a sign he meant it. She smiled and let her heels fall back down to earth, fixing her dress and hair.

"I want to talk to you, Lily. I seriously do this time."

"Breakthrough on my part perhaps?"

"You're a fucking brilliant physician, what else can I say?"

He raised his palm to feel the warmth of her cheek, brushing away the loose strands of hair he felt tangled in his fingers. Leaning into him again, his arm came around the small of her back, allowing for her to lead the way out to the balcony of the room. It was cold, but necessarily so.

Lily took a seat on one of the long, cushioned lounge chairs, but Jeff remained standing in the wind, hands in the pockets of his jeans, eyebrows creased into the icy air in thought. She waited for him, knowing it was what he needed, the time to determine his thoughts, the time to just simply collect himself then and now.

With a final puff of cloudy breath, he stumbled upon the words.

"You really picked the winner again, Lily."

His hands twisted into his pockets as she watched him rise and fall off of the heels of his boots.

"I would say I don't know what you see in a messed up bastard like me, but Jesus…" he chuckled briefly, "...I wouldn't be able to see it anyway."

"It's still you, you know."

Her words hit him difficultly, but he accepted them with a sigh. "Just a hell of a lot meaner though, right?"

"It's not like you don't have a reason to be upset."

"Pitiful, pussy excuse."

"If you say so."

Immediately, he turned on his heels toward her and lifted his shades away from his face in the dark sky overhead. Unable to make out much of his wounds, Lily focused on the way his lips pursed in the exposed mode, the way his eyebrows, barely remaining, tightened against the tanned skin of his forehead and then relaxed with another sigh.

"Sometimes I swear I could open them up again, like sleeping and opening your eyes, you know. Just blink and it'll all be over."

Sands tapped his boot into a short walk from around the patio table, following her breath in the wind like a breadcrumb trail. When he found the leg of a close chair, he pulled back and slumped into it, inches from her body and her warmth.

"It's the single most frustrating thing in the world not being able to see people when they talk to me. Screw the ocean or the ability to drive a car, I used to read people, I used to know them. I used to know you so well, just by looking in your eyes."

Lily felt tears begin to crease the corners of her eyes when his head fell into his hands.

"I can't tell what you're thinking. I hate it so damn much. When you're quiet, it's like I'm the last person left on earth."

"Well, I'm here." She replied in a whisper as her hand came across to caress his leg.

"As if I can understand why. I know even being blind that you're still the most beautiful thing I've ever touched. I know Carter's getting his mind set on you too. You're something else." She laughed back her tears and brought her chair closer to his as he continued. "I just don't get it, all these years and no ring, no suit and tie lover, no kids. What the hell's your deal?"

She paused in reflection, wondering how the conversation had turned so rapidly onto her.

"You can't tell me you didn't want all that shit. The big house full of screaming kids, sex with your husband in the afternoon…Stepford syndrome."

" And who says I don't still want sex in the afternoon with my husband?"

Jeff took her hand in his with a short chuckle, tangling fingers and waiting until she spoke again.

"Jeff, I don't know what to tell you."

"Tell me anything. Talk to me. Just say words so I can hear you."

With a sigh, she deliberated the truth. There was only truth behind her still being alone and in search of life. "I ruined my chances. All of them." It came out quickly and muted, like an answer to a test question, like a second thought.

"Am I worthy of an explanation, Hanson?"

She breathed in deep, exhaling, and tracing the outline of each of his fingertips, attempting to focus and hone in on her point.

"I have this dress in my mother's house back home, and it's just collecting dust. I was supposed to wear it, oh God, four years ago. I was going to be…_Mrs. Ryan McAllister_."

The flighty notation in her voice gave Sands every reason in the world to expect the terrible ending he pictured, but he was reserved enough to listen to her words and keep his attention on the pressure points in her hand alone.

"He was a lawyer, suit and tie, five to five every day. I met him at a Christmas party. We moved in together after a few months, when I was just finishing up grad school. And I was really excited, I really thought I was happy, I guess."

"You guess? Sounds real convincing there Aristotle…" His teasing caused her head to turn upward and see the coy smile she so loved plastering his cheeks.

"Well I was stupid. I didn't know what I wanted, I only thought I did. He offered to marry me, I said yes. He bought a house outside of the city, I said yes to that. It was a really immature decision on my part."

"And I suppose you learned you're lesson well?"

Choking back the emotion she had allowed her face to drain without his knowing so, Lily glanced up from his face to see the iced Florida stars behind him, focused her vision on one, and then spoke quietly.

"I learned it the same way I learn all of my lessons, Jeff."

He tightened his hand around hers and gently smoothed over her bare arm.

"How's that?"

. "By losing the person who teaches them to me."

Her breathing changed again and he noticed the anxious tone, the one that said she was already uncomfortable but unwilling to quit. He brushed her knuckles and tried to picture the sight of the tears falling down her cheeks and then she spoke again in a murmur.

"Ryan was killed in a car accident three weeks before the wedding."

The universe temporarily tumbled apart to allow them space and peace of mind; for Lily to collect her bearings into the tightly woven cage they'd been stocked into for years and for Sands to sit studying her breathing pattern by teardrops and deliberation. He knew the sound of sincere pain when it came from Lillian Hanson, he had known it, and feared greatly in this moment, that he always would. No matter what he did to try and ease the swelling of her heart, she would always have breaks and cracks in places he could never fully lift away. No one could. And as she tried to do the same for him, their paths of care crossed through force and grief, leaving them at opposite ends of the chain.

"Lily, I didn't know," he whispered as he stroked the backs of her cold hands. She knew better than to expect ritualistic sympathy from him, and in a way, it made her feel better without having it.

"How did this whole thing become about me anyway?"

She giggled the tears off her cheeks and shuffled in her chair. Sands called it as a moment of passing grief, one Lily was able to move away from quickly, the kind that she had taught herself to move from quickly.

He smiled, fixed his glasses and took her hands further into his lap. "I'm a prying bastard, remember?"

"Oh right, CIA…almost forgot."

Her short laugh brightened him in places left dark by her tears, but after another moment, Sands couldn't hear her breathing as defiantly, and knew she was looking away from him.

"Lily, there's a lot of things I won't apologize for. I'm not going to apologize for your fiancé dying and I'm not going to let myself apologize for acting the way I have, the way I do. If you were with that guy then you wouldn't be here now with me, and if I were too laid back with you actually _being here_, you could get yourself killed."

"So it's a catch 22 with us?"

"Wasn't it always?"

"Not all the time."

"Well, things change right?"

"Sometimes."

"They have with us."

"Have they, Jeff? Really?"

Frustrated at his own inability to respond, he let go of her hands and kicked back and away from the chair he sat in. He managed to stumble around the iron patio table and back to the balcony rail, the wind shooting rough onto his nose and cheeks. From behind him, he quietly heard her voice shake.

"Y-you said you wanted to talk."

"I need to. And it's not working."

"I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to sleep with me or be with me again, but I am your doctor. It's my job to get you through this."

His face perked up quickly, "What the hell did you say?"

Lily paused a two feet away from him, rubbed her cold nose and returned, "I said it's my job to help you get over this."

"No. Before that."

"Before I said that I don't expect you to sleep with me? Or want to be with me, again? Because I don't."

Sands stood up tall in front of her, measured her height by the patter of her iced breath on his neck and tilted his head downward.

"Lost all faith, have we doc?"

"Or willingness to fight, like I told you earlier."

"Fight for what?"

"You know what."

Her eyes squinted into tight seams as she looked high into his face, forcing herself to picture his solid, overcast eyes behind the shades.

"I just want to hear you _say it_, all I have left is my hearing. Give me a reason to praise its usefulness for once."

Lily tucked her cold nose into the palm of her hand for a moment, thinking about all of things she could say, all of things she knew she had to eventually. Seconds, minutes passed with nothing to go on, nothing to generate truth for him except a jumbled mess of inner collective thoughts. He waited, impatiently by nature and concern.

"Well…? Got anything for me?"

"You can't force me to say what you want to hear. And why do you want to hear it anyway…what do you really care, Jeff? I'm sure it's just going to come back to bite me in the ass every time I'm with you."

"Think so?"

"I know so." She shot back at him.

"You have lost faith in me…"

"It's kind of hard not to when you treat me the way you do."

"I told you, I push you away to protect you. We're not kids anymore, Lily. If you only knew how fucking dangerous it can be."

"Oh you pain in the ass," she granted a harsh whisper before easing to turn on her heels inside again. He caught her tiny wrist in his though, firmly, and pulled her back into him.

"Yes, I am." He murmured high above her nose, his chest rising and falling against her body, his arms holding her waist to his. "Would you love me half as much if I were any other way?"

Lily's mind stopped in a jolt as she lay restless and standing in his arms. His grin was sincere and determined, the same as her brother's was on so many occasions, on so many days and nights of saying the same exact thing to her. Tom knew Jeff was a pain in the ass, it was why they were such close friends, the counter opposite of everything he was at times. And Tom knew Lily loved Jeff because he was that way, because he was crude and selfish and never took excuses as answers. Because he could protect her willingly and ask questions later. Because he never let her win a fight easily; she always needed to be challenged, just the same as him.

"_Would you love Jeff half as much if he was any other way…?"_

"What…" she tried, catching her words in a twisted mess before they left her mouth completely. "…what makes you think I really feel something for you anymore? Cocky much?"

"I guess I was just sort of hoping you would make this easier on me."

A gulp soaked her throat with what felt like venom, and she eased into his touch. "Make what easier on you?"

Nothing and no one could be heard from where they stood, tangled, weaved together uncomfortably from a viewer's eye, and yet as primly as possible from inside of their bubble. It was breathing without noise and seeing without color and in a single, solitary flash, it drained them of all inhibitions. Jeff held onto Lily's waist until she felt she had become part of him, a fashioned, phantom limb of some kind.

"I want for you to know something and I'm really hoping it's going to end all of this judgment you have over me."

"I'm not trying to--"

His hand pressed to her lips urged the quiet he needed, forcing her to listen to him without interruption. Sands dragged her back the twenty two steps he counted from the open rail to the sliding doorway of the room, inside another fifteen steps until they reach the bed's fluffed edge, and feeling around to knock off his mess of stuff, he pushed her down calmly into a seat.

"Just sit."

Lily said nothing and watched him step away a good three feet from the bed.

"I don't want you to think about anything. Just listen to me."

She nodded out of habit and then caught herself to reply for him, "Okay."

"Good."

Her hands rested on her lap, her eyes on his form moving back and forth in the darkness of the room, and her heart passing through tunnels in the space between them. Lily took a solemn breath as she heard him begin, keeping her mind tuned in on his every noise, his every word or statement.

"A couple of years after Tommy died…I uh, well I drove back through Chatham. It was the end of my first_ official_ year with the Agency, I had two weeks off, and I went down the Cape to stay."

He kicked his boots off aimlessly as he talked, ran his fingers through his hair and then tucked them back into his jeans.

"I needed to go somewhere and think, I'd killed something like thirty guys in a month down in Brazil. I was just doing it out of anger at that point, not because I thought it was my job. I wanted to kill every single fucking person who had ever killed anyone innocent or put a cop in their grave. It was my way of losing my mind all over again I guess."

He chuckled and moved down to sit cross legged on the floor, like a child, a lost one. Lily couldn't tear her eyes away for a second.

"I came back to Washington and was so afraid to be around people, I thought I would kill just about anyone who got in my way at that point; it was an addiction to hear bullets fly through skin. So Shane convinced me to pack up my shit and drive somewhere, anywhere really, just to get into safer and less populated territory. I didn't plan on going to Chatham. I sort of ended up there without knowing it."

Lily half smiled down at him and curled her legs up to the mattress more comfortably.

"I went as far as the coast and got a room in that place your mom's friend owned, _Carriage House Inn_. Since I got there on a Tuesday, I figured you were back in Boston till at least the weekend, and even then I didn't know if you'd be home. Funny thing was I didn't care, at least I thought I didn't care at all. I wanted to be near you but not see you. It made no fucking sense."

From out of his pocket, he anxiously drew a prematurely rolled cigarette and tipped it into the corner of his mouth, searching out his lighter. She kept silent in all of this, knowing he wasn't finished and only easing the sting of telling her any of it at all. He lit the paper with a sizzling heat, seared out a drag of smoke through the quiet air of the room, and then sighed into speaking again.

"I stuck around the Inn for most of the week, walked the beach probably a dozen times, and then finally decided to drive into town on that Friday. I remember Pate's being closed for the boat races and so I ended up down at Marley's, got a beer and hung around the back deck watching the trawlers come in to unload their catch. I forgot how cool it was to just sit there and watch them, you know? It was what I needed."

Lily sat still with all of her years and memories without him washed away to know that he had been there in a time when she imagined him long gone. To know now, that he was there, near her, in her hometown when she thought him all but lost to the wind and his wild ambitions.

"Well, it was one of the things I needed. I didn't realize it till it happened, but I needed to see you too."

Her gaze focused down and deeper on him at his statement.

"I was leaving the bar when you were coming out of the bookstore across the street. You didn't see me. You were so focused on your feet, or the ground, or something completely unimportant. I remember it like it was an hour ago, you were wearing that same blue flannel shirt of your dad's, three sizes too big and covering your old jeans, your hair was such a mess, from the cold and the wind and whatever else you'd been dealing with that day. And for half a second you looked like the saddest thing in the world. And that made me the second saddest thing in the world."

Lily felt her throat close up on her, her hands clench into the cotton of her dress, her heart stop pattering to thump as loudly as a drum.

"You never looked up or saw me standing there. I moved one boot to walk across and catch you, to shout something out and you just got in your dad's old truck and drove off. It was so quick, like it never happened. It was the worst fucking thing to ever happen to me though. The fact that I was beaten and losing my mind and I had to see you like that, no better off than me. Suicide had never been so appealing as it did on that day, Lily. It's the last time I saw you; it's the last memory I have of you to go on."

She held back every tear and every sob to stand from the edge of the bed, and lower herself down to only knees before him on the floor.

"That's why I push you back when you come closer. I'm so fucking scared of breaking you down to that again, I feel like I could ruin the little strength you have left. And to know that I did it, I would gladly kill myself."

"Don't say that." She finally spoke as she rested her hands on his crossed legs and leaned closer in to him. "You can't say that to me. Please."

"Like it's that easy."

"It is." Lily commanded firmly. "It is that easy. If you're afraid of hurting me then don't think about killing yourself. You know that would just kill me too. Do you want to kill me, Sheldon?"

The tears met with her words, a few lone drops falling onto his rumbled jeans legs.

"Don't be stupid, Lily."

Immediately, as if a gutless will had come over her, she raised her hand from his lap to smack him roughly against the face. Sands' let his head drop back and away with her palm, accepting the sting of pain it caused, reveling in her strength under all given conditions. Moving her face into his, she fixed his glasses and brought her hand to his opposite cheek to move his head in her direction again, softly.

"You don't be stupid, Jeff. Say what you mean. Say what you're trying to already, get it over with and stop making me suffer. Don't you dare let me walk away a third time, because I promise you, at this rate, I eventually will."

She struck him hard with her words, made him concentrate on nothing and no one but her, left him sitting there beneath her invisible glare like a sinner in a storm of guilt and faithlessness. He knew exactly what was left between them, the only thing that hadn't been stated clearly in the ruff of a week's long argument and brawl of hearts. He knew all too well and all too damn clear.

"You ought to know how much I want to be near you by now. I can't stand when you aren't in the same room with me, or when you get mad and walk away. You want me to die? I only will if you don't stop me from getting away again; it's your call."

It was hot and cold and quiet and loud, ringing, blaring, soft, and sensational all at once. He sat there, her breath warm and cool on his nose and cheeks, her hands firm and gentle on his legs, her curiosity consuming him in both good and bad ways. And as much as he felt it all, he couldn't bring himself to the brink yet, he just couldn't say it. Not again, not after Mexico and losing trust, and especially not so easily after the eight years of tired agony he had been without her. Sands knew what he wanted and at the same time knew that what he wanted and needed was what would kill him if he didn't test the waters correctly, slowly.

"I don't want you to leave." He replied softly. "But I don't want you to think that everything is just going to smooth itself over after all this time."

"I don't think that."

"And yet you stay?"

Lily brushed the back of her hand against his tight jaw, her nerves shaking, "Yeah. I stay."

* * *

**PART 2:**

Chatham High School

_February 13__th__, 1993_

* * *

_The last bell of the day rang and Lily could have sworn it was a Monday by the pace, never remembering it to be Friday at all. She tore off her apron and cleaned up a few dirtied beakers before grabbing her bag and meeting a few friends near the doorway of the Chem. lab._

"_Bonfire tonight, Lil?" Her good and closest friend Bobby asked with a crooked smile as they wandered down the crowded halls. She still hadn't, in four years, picked up on his true feelings._

"_Umm…I didn't hear about one."_

"_Yeah, down at White Pond about 9 or so."_

_It had been almost 3 years since her dad had passed away, shot down in a diner in East Boston. Valentine's night, the night Tommy had gone to his senior dance, the night everything changed. She had chosen not to go to this year's dance for obvious and emotional reasons, and instead had simply planned on staying in with her mother, and playing everything incredibly safe. It was what she needed, especially with it being Friday the 13__th__. She had no right to take chances._

"_I don't know Bobby, I was sort of thinking about just staying home tonight."_

"_You…stay home? Yeah right." He laughed as they stepped down into the front parking lot of the school together, a few other friends attached behind, begging her to reconsider the beach and party. "Come on Lily, it will be fun!"_

_It was just as her Converse hit the bottom step of the schoolyard that she glanced out to see the sun gleaming off the black tint of a closely parked Trans Am. On the 77' restored hood, the slender and distinguished body of someone who barely passed for anyone old enough to be allowed on school campus leaned coolly. Jeff relaxed with a tight and glowing grin on his face, a single hole in the right knee of his jeans, and his muscles flexed without much effort through the thin cotton of his white tee. Lily stood for a moment longer, awkwardly smiling over at him, a hundred different whispering people in front and at her sides when she carefully walked in his direction._

"_Lily…" Bobby tried once more, "What about tonight?"_

_But she was too lost inside of her college admirer and family friend of five months to care much about a silly high school bonfire. She walked away and met Jeff at the hood as he stood taller than her, his glasses pushed up and through his messy curls._

"_Quite an audience for one girl."_

_She glanced back at the crowd embarrassed and then to him again. "I think you're the subject matter, Jeff."_

"_Oh." He replied proudly, curiously and raised his head higher to smile and wave at everyone. "Thanks for the greeting everyone…it's much appreciated!" _

_Lily shoved on his stomach for him to stop, laughing along._

"_Cut it out…I'm mortified enough, thanks."_

_Looking down at her in the afternoon sunlight, her auburn curls floating at her neck and the blue-green of her eyes aglow like the waves off the coast, he could only smile. _

"_Will a ride help?"_

"_It's a start." _

_She nodded jokingly and took off toward the passenger's side, throwing her bag through the back window. She didn't think twice about her friends and what they were wondering. She didn't think twice about Tommy and what he'd say. She didn't think twice about whether Jeff was taking her home or taking her to Israel. She was unconcerned with details for the first time in three years._

_Inside, the radio blared a toxic beat of classic something or other, the smoke rising from the back of the car was a billow she remembered a few times from Jeff's visits to the house, and the rattle of the engine around her was more exciting than anything she'd known before. As he backed out of the parking lot and streamed from the crowd loudly, he leaned over toward her for the first of many rides together, and grinned wickedly. _

"_I'm yours for the afternoon, Miss Hanson."_

_Rolling her eyes with a giggle, she stopped to look him straight in the eye; her lips pursed teasingly. _

"_Well if I'm not the luckiest girl there ever was…"_

* * *

"Tell me why you want me to stay, Jeff."

"You don't believe me?"

"I do…" she urged, the small tip of her index finger tracing over his full, soft lips. "…I just want to hear you tell me. I want to know."

"It would probably be a hell of a lot easier to just list why I wouldn't."

She giggled and curled further into him, feeling eighteen again. His arms came around her the same as if it were a day at the beach or an afternoon at the docks or even a fourth inning stretch on a freezing Boston night. It had always seemed to stay just the same, no matter what he did to try and grow up and away from her, all these years later, the effect remained.

"I want you for this right now." He finally stated, quietly in her ear, less than a whisper even. She smiled into his arm and held him closer. "I want you here to put up with my bullshit. You're the only one that will."

"That's a good one." She laughed.

"I want you here to fight with me. To fight _for_ me."

She watched as his face turned down with a wicked smile.

"I have to admit, I do love fighting with you."

"Don't I know it," he cackled with a firm grasp of her waist in his lap, moving his lips down to cover her forehead and nose.

"What else?"

"I want you to stay because I'm tired of thinking about you with other men, thinking about all those guys in bars trying to take you home every night."

"I assure you there aren't many."

"Yeah right," he murmured.

"As if you couldn't take them all anyway."

She whispered dreamily into his ear, her hands in his hair as Sands found he was unable to stall and covered her body until they landed one atop the other on the soft carpet. He felt around for any nearby furniture or items, to find the space available and waiting for whatever he wanted to do to her.

"I'll take them to the cleaners one by one if it means I get to have you to myself."

His hand brushed down her sides to feel out the warmth, the sedation of the moment. He needed to know it was real by touch and sense, the same as her eyes must have been. In a slow drape of his body, he came toward her breath and lowered his mouth to where he heard nervous hesitation, something he understood all too well at this point.

"I have to kiss you now…before I lose my mind."

She said nothing and waited, watching his body drop down; his lips separated and encased her own in a gentle swoop. There was nothing but heat, cloudiness blocking out the brightest of lights in the darkest of the spaces, her toes tingling against the carpet under him, her chest rising and falling shortly into his own as he held her to his mouth harder.

Lily wondered if any man without the simple skill of sight would ever be as capable of leaving her as restless as he did. She wondered how Jeff even cared enough to react this way anymore, and how he seemed to have found a subtle control in the chaos of their reunion…_finally_.

Offering his tongue to the inside of her mouth only as carefully as he knew his pressing mind could manage, Sands felt the tip of hers tingle and pulled back into darkness, his hand still holding her cheek from the ground. The sensation of her tongue, of her taste was clever. It took him to places he hadn't been in years, to things and feelings and conversations that had escaped his immediate thought process for far too long. It was like they had never made love before, eight years ago or that week. It jolted him in ways he hadn't known could remain.

Lily looked at him concerned, "Everything okay?"

He sat perched above her a moment longer, aggravating his mind with the question, letting it sink in, swirl about for answers, and then easily turned back to her steady breathing and whispered with a coy smirk.

"Yeah. Just a little déjà vu."

* * *

**Harwich Port**

**February 13th, 1993**

* * *

_The sun had ceased to exist in the short fifteen minute drive from the school parking lot to the Harwich coast. The wind had picked up steadily, brushing against the sides of the car in haste, as if they were begging for them to turn around, to ignore the urge to keep driving. But Jeff did not stop and Lily did not ask why._

_The Trans Am came to a disturbing halt in the middle of the empty dock lot, screeching with the ending edge of __**Don't Look Back**__. Jeff's fingers tapped to the last beat on the steering wheel as Lily shuffled to relax with the lack of movement, the nearing silence, the low rumble of the engine versus her heart beat and the sound of her brother's best friend humming in the seat beside her. She tried and only failed against the disturbing wind outside of the car, waiting for Jeff to speak, waiting for Jeff to say all of things she was curious about without having to ask questions._

_He turned an instant later with a sidelong smile. "Good sailing wind today."_

_Lily could only briefly nod and hope her eyes weren't landing too closely on his lips as they moved._

_He tilted his face away from her for a moment to peer up and out of the windshield of the car at the sky, "Shouldn't rain till late tonight."_

"_Hm." She hummed nervously in agreement._

"_Feel like testing the waters?" His smile was back and his gaze upon hers then, as coolly as she had ever known any guy to act, as intimidating as she had ever known as guy to be. Lily had to admit though, that past the tension, she liked it._

"_You mean on a boat?"_

_He chuckled loudly and tore the keys from the ignition. "Yeah. On a boat."_

"_I didn't know you had--"_

_Jeff cut her off with a hand on the back of her headrest and a leathery lean toward her. "It belongs to my old man."_

"_Oh."_

"_But he's out of town."_

"_Hm." She hummed again, anxious to get to some point in the conversation._

"_Do you like boats?"_

_Her thoughts were instantly thrown forward, a deep breath loosening from her lungs as she giggled with a smile. "I'm sorry, yeah I do. I used to go out with my dad and Tommy all the time."_

"_So I heard." His words were soft, acknowledgeable, just. And following them was a clear silence, an almost necessary one before he returned to finish and seal the action. "Can you trust me to take you out on one?"_

_Lily's eyes darted from the wind filled sails and flags of the distant boats, to the small, fading green radio station numbers still half illuminated from the powerless car, and then up to his face again, gently. "I trust you," she said with a firm hand on the car door handle._

_No more than a minute had passed further than they were both out of the car and headed down the docks. Five more minutes carried on with sporadic and humorous conversation to which they arrived at the sailboat, Jeff giving a tour while working on hauling its anchorage, and Lily mesmerized by the size, the beauty of the vessel with each step she took across it. Another ten minutes of laughing and musical debate continued while they slowly and steadily parted ways with the docks and met the fierceness of the Cape's wind head on. Jeff kept firm and barefooted behind the large wheel, his eye on only Lily and the rocking waves beyond her gust strewn curls, and Lily, seated comfortably in the center of the boats wooden deck, legs outstretched, jacket tight around her, and a smile that accepted every harsh slap from the stormy winds and every narrow bank of the coasts' outer tilts._

_From behind her, she could eventually hear a call. "Not bad for a kid from Kentucky, huh?!"_

_She laughed and turned her head back to him at the same time. Lily noted the spray of water that landed in the same three places at his right cheek, neck and knuckles with every drop the boat made, as well as the tiny holes creeping out of the neckline to his shirt. Without his sunglasses on Jeff looked even darker, although his eyes were calm when they caught hers, begging for her to come closer, to be near him._

_She got up carefully, her fingers latched onto all sorts of lines and railings until she reached the lower deck where he stood gripping the forceful wheel. "I'm impressed," she shouted back at him as her Converse sneakers landed beside his bare toes, still keeping her a whole foot shorter than him. Lily looked up into the grey haze to see him chuckling. The moment continued to a hesitated peace as they both looked out on the fogged horizon, catching short glimpses of porch lights, docks lights, and the glimmer of the lighthouse another mile or so out._

_Relieving himself of one view to focus on another, Jeff drew his hand out from the wheel to catch Lily's at her side and tug gently back. "Come here a sec."_

"_What for?"_

"_I want you to feel something."_

_Only half accepting of the response, Lily gave him an awkward and twisted glance before she stepped in closer to him and the wheel. Jeff placed her hand gently onto the wooden spindle as his covered it and her body came to an easy stance between the two. She said nothing and moved nowhere, only focusing on his shallow breathing and the adjustment of the situation as he spoke deeply in her ear._

"_Let me see your other hand too."_

_She prized him with her tender and cool palm as he drew it under his second hand as well._

"_It's pretty choppy water…you feel that groaning at the hull?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_She's mad at me for taking her out in the storm." Lily laughed softly, catching his heart in a quick trap, even though she was unaware. "We have to be gentle with her."_

"_Or what?"_

"_Or she'll teach us a lesson…she can be mean when you don't expect it."_

"_Yeah?"_

"_The worst. Which is why I love her." He chuckled in a growl just over her head, and Lily noted the way he spoke of the boat, as if it were a close friend, a lover, something that entitled him to at least some happiness in the world. She knew he had very little elsewhere. In a second though, her thoughts were pulled away and her mind was captured on his soft words. "Do you feel that?"_

_Lily paused to focus._

"_Feel that kick in the sails?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Amazing huh?"_

"_Amazing." She agreed with a careful smile out to sea._

* * *

"What are you thinking about?"

Her whispering voice and the sensation of her hand on his cheek as he pulled away to sit beside her, were as confusing as the ideas tossing in his head. He could hear waves, and smell salt, air; her perfume caught in a taut sail and feel the misty wax under his bare feet. There she was, tiny and innocent in his arms. There she was for the first time and here now, as he listens to her breathe, he knows he has to answer to the memory and all of the subsequent thoughts of what could have been and what almost was.

They said nothing to each other, and eventually Jeff crawled away from her arms to stand and stumble back out to the balcony. His head was still reeling desperately, needing to know everything, needing to go back and mend things broken for far too long. Half of which, he admitted whole heartedly, he knew not a single aspect of doing.

Lily eventually followed his scent out through the doors to where the wind was picking up and growing colder, as a rumble of thunder threatened the skies at a distance. She sat on the edge of one of the patio chairs, her knees shaking together, her eyes fixed on the muscle protruding through the back of his shirt as he leaned into the rail, gripping the iron bars tight. She'd been here before and knew how it felt a long time ago, and had he not interrupted her imagery a second later, she might have gone on remembering it all.

With an almost hushed tone, but angry nonetheless, he spoke toward the wind.

"You didn't tell me you thought you were pregnant."

It was a shocking way to end the silence, a statement that cut like a knife from behind. She never saw it coming at all, mostly because she had no idea he even knew. He had been so lively and accepting through the afternoon and night, and yet it seemed their conversation, their interests in one another's, still weren't done. He wasn't quite done with the inquisition.

"Shane told you."

"No. She didn't."

"Then how did you--"

He slammed the palm of his hand against the iron top railing, "Damn it, Lily," and hid his face further into the shadows of his shoulders. His moods were on edge again, from one extreme to another in a flash. Minutes before he was admitting he wanted her to stay with him, and moments before that, he was ready to make love to her in the doorway. Now, he was attacking her for something that had 'almost' and 'never' happened, eight years ago.

"Just tell me why you never said anything about it. Don't you think I had a right to know?"

"Jeff, it was a long time ago." She whispered back, unwilling to raise her voice to him.

"How about when it was happening? That doesn't count for anything?"

"No."

"Why?" He demanded soundly.

"Because nothing happened. It was a false alarm."

He shook his head at this and returned to lean against the rail, eyes imagining a view of the streets and city below. Lily slumped back into the chairs high cushions, her knees pressed tightly into her body for warmth. She wanted to cry, but knew better than to bother with it yet. Instead she traced circles on the draping hem of her sundress where it fell over her bent knees, and listened intently to the sound of his labored, tired breathing. He wasn't getting the rest he needed when he could get it. He wasn't following his doctors - _her _- orders.

One more second passed with utter motionless in the universe, and he returned peaceably.

"Were you planning on telling me if it hadn't been a false alarm?"

Lily's eyes quickly darted to see his low face, weak with the pain of too many memories.

"Of course. I only wanted to know it was true first." She rose from the bench, but didn't move any closer to him. "I didn't want you to worry if it was nothing."

"Either way…" he began quietly, whispering into the wind, "It would have been _something_ to _me_."

And it was this, more than anything else that be said thus far, which made the tears finally formulate in the ducts of her eyes, filling and choking her in a single moment. The worst part was that the way she saw him standing there, hurt and distressed, she knew he could have easily cried too. And yet he couldn't, ever.

She could barely stand, too feeble to continue the words being shared, and knowing that they must, knowing that it was a long time coming, this entire night and every feeling expressed in it already. Part of her wanted to fill in the gap between them, wrap her arms around him and never let go. And an even louder voice kept telling her somewhere deep inside, to wait, be patient, and let him see that he needs you just as much first. Let him make every necessary move on this chess board.

So she waited quietly.

"You must have been scared shitless." He hummed his concern and pushed his body from the rail to stand in a slouched limp on his good leg.

Lily replied simply, "I was."

"With Tommy…and then _that_." He made two slow, wobbling steps toward her and stopped again.

"All the more reason for me not to worry you with it too, Jeff."

He sighed deep and took another small step. "I could have been there for you. I tried to be there…"

She cut him off fast and shallow. "I know you did."

"But you didn't want me. You walked away." He moved in closer to her, just able to feel her breath on his neck and through his thin white cotton shirt.

"I had to let you go. I couldn't hurt you anymore."

"Now doesn't that sound familiar…?" he motioned with a faint smirk, thinking back on his own confessions in the hotel room an minutes before.

"So we both admit to concerning ourselves with each other's emotions too much."

"I guess so."

He reached out to feel for her skin, to find her exact position in the wind between him and the city, between death and life. Lily watched as his hand moved around in the space in front of her, until it came up to rest lightly on her cheek. She leaned into his certain touch hesitantly, the tears rolling from her eyes to his palm. "I had a feeling you were crying." He whispered and stepped in until there was no space left.

"What else is there left to do anymore?" She sniffled and continued when he didn't reply, letting his hand remain on her cold, wet cheek. "We've fought for a week just to get to the point where we can say we care about each other, again. And _look_…" she stopped herself in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it--"

"I know." He whispered, brushing back the tears and distress he could hear and feel on her face.

"It's just that, all of this crap, all these words we keep saying to each other…are they even fixing anything? I still feel so broken. And you look broken."

"But I feel fine."

"You're just saying that. Your mood flips every three seconds. You're happy, then you're mad at me, then you want to sleep with me, then you want to hit me…it's just so…"

"Lily, stop." He urged, grasping onto her face, hands to cheeks holding her still and calm.

"Breathe for me, would ya?" She laughed out the tears into his hands, her eyes settled in confusion as he wiped her nose with the pad of his thumb, and her eyes with the stretched cotton of his shirt. He didn't need to be able to see, to know what to do, and that made her feel better in some respect.

After she took a deep breath, he spoke to her again gently.

"For just a second…think about who we are Lily, you and me. We're not exactly common ground in the world of romance. Let's face it, I'm no Romeo." She wanted to laugh, but held back, realizing he was serious. "The shit's piled up right on top of us, one thing after the other and it's still racking up." He moved his free hand around in motions she hardly paid attention to, she could only focus on his lips moving. "This…_us_…it's never going to be easy. It's always gonna be really fucking hard. We're gonna have to work on it every day from here on out, because every day it's going to be something else kicking our asses."

He paused for a moment when he felt something hit his nose, a raindrop. Standing tall again and taking in a deep breath of a coming storm, he welcomed it. His hands moved down her cheeks to hold her shoulders, his thumbs brushing her ears to relax her when he felt her body trembling into him. After another moment, he returned, lowering his voice and face to a level where he could feel her breathing on his chin, and spoke again.

"I've seen things in my life and out there that are going to haunt me until the day I die. And no offense Babe, but ink blots and pills aren't going to solve it all."

"I know that." She whispered at the interval, a couple of thicker droplets hitting her forehead and cheek.

"We're going to have to fight for it, same as we have all week. I've been pushing you away to keep you safe, and to see if you'd come back. And you do, every single time. So I know at least you're not ready to give up so easily."

"I'm not."

"Well neither am I. I want all of you again Lily…I want what I had the first time multiplied a hundred times over. I want to know you'll let me be the one to worry about stuff for you, not your mom, not your friends…_me_. I want to be the first one you think of, good or bad."

He stopped talking and thinking to breathe, to let her say something. But he held onto her, clinging for life, for the effort to be what he had struggled so long to hide under his bullet proof exterior. Lily had made Rome crumble somehow.

She stood under his touch and imaginably pensive gaze, trying to picture it, the thirty year mark from where they were at this moment, where they could be. She saw waves, and a dock on a beach, and she saw a man sitting on an easterly coastline with a guitar in one hand and another one held out for her to take. She saw all of this and too much more to not look up at him and smile, the warm rain beginning to fall loosely between their faces.

"I'm going to fight for you, Sparky."

He smiled with a deep breath. "Yeah?"

"Yes."

She leaned in to where his lips were at her level still, taking hold of his dripping face with her hands and bringing his mouth in a crash upon hers. The water soaked into their kiss, like the freshest memory being made. He let himself go at her will, finding his hands suddenly engulfing her slighter form and pulling her drenched and deep into him. Lily's tongue pierced his lips before he could attempt the same on her, and she met his fiercely, desperate for any and all possible contact. He lifted her body from the wet ground to the even wetter air around him, the skirt of her dress falling away from her legs as she clung to him, kissing his lips hard and running every one of her fingers through his damp, blackened locks.

Somewhere in the distance of the pouring balcony, they both tuned directly into the faint sound of music, drifting up through the raindrops towards them from the hotel pool cabana below. There were voices following a harmony, the distinct nature of a nearby band. Lily pulled away from his lips long enough to hold a hazy gaze into the rain over Jeff's head, glancing out with a breath to take it all in, the thing she still couldn't believe was even real. It never seemed so real to her.

She turned back to his face in the rain, to see that he had torn off his glasses, and that the water was running down over the stitched and bruised skin where his eyes once were. Lily thought she might cry again and it would go unnoticed in the rain, but she didn't. Instead her fingers moved up to brush against the tender patches of skin, followed by her lips, sliding and kissing over them one by one.

"You don't scare me, _Sheldon Jeffery Sands_. You never have."

He grinned and squeezed her waist tighter to his as he walked her back in the direction he now officially knew the room and their bed to be in.

"You're the first person to tell me that."


	27. Where I'll Be

**Where I'll be**

_8:20 AM_

**

* * *

**

"Okay, my turn."

"Hit me."

Lily spread out across Sands' chest, bared to the bone and thirty hours behind on sleep, but still laughing.

"Ready?"

He slid his hand down her smooth back under the sheets and squeezed her ass, "Yes."

She giggled and hit the button on the stereo remote, changing the song on her iPod instantly from across the room. It played for all of eight seconds, a righteous beat and a tampering rhythm, and then she stopped it again suddenly.

"Marvin Gaye."

"And…?"

"77, I think."

"Yeah…and the song is?"

Jeff's brow tightened as he forced himself to think of it, something nearly impossible with the heat of her breath over his face and her clammy mold settled between his legs.

"Song is…_Got to Give it Up_?"

She laughed and quickly caught his lips between hers.

"Good job."

"Let's have another."

"Okay."

She clicked the remote again and another song instantly spilled out through the room, making her want to get up and dance, although she waited and pressed stop after ten seconds.

Sands went quicker with this one though, "That's_ Message in a Bottle_, '79."

"And who sings it?"

"Don't patronize me, kid."

He flipped her over in his arms and pinned her to the mattress, crooning deep in her ear.

"The Police, album _Reggatta de Blanc_. Their Label was A&M, the genre is considered new wave and the producer is St--"

She stopped him and forced his mouth down on hers in a heated rush, if for nothing else, than to shut him up for the first time all night long. Her lips and tongue melted every bit of him that was still able to function at all. The unfair sensation of her thighs wrapped around him, her feet on his back and her fingers through his hair, would have been enough to do in a man any weaker. He pulled back and could somehow feel her smile up at him as he peaceably concluded.

"Sting."

She growled with laughter and pushed him off of her with the sheet wrapped tight to her body.

"I need a shower."

"A shower with a blind masseuse?"

Lily slid off the bed as he followed after her breath.

"I haven't worn you out yet?"

"Woah…" he defended himself strongly as he jumped down from the bed in the buff, "…below the belt there, Hanson. I have no jumping off point with dirty hotel sex."

She moved her hand up to pat his cheek. "Prove me wrong then, _Energizer Bunny_."

"Oh you are just asking for trouble."

"Maybe."

She took his hand in hers and led him toward the bathroom, tripping over clothes and towels and shoes alike. Sands made it inside to the tile floor with her help, but once there, he knew exactly what to do. He moved his hand to where he felt Lily clinging to the bed sheet at her chest and pulled it away in a flash. Her consistent laughter only made his movements all the more entertaining, as he pulled her bare form into his arms and stumbled towards where he remembered the shower being.

"The lessons will never end with you, will they?"

"What kind of a world would that be?" He dropped her to the stoned floor of the massive shower and shut the glass door behind him when he felt her pull him inside against her body at the wall. "A world without your '_lessons'_ would be so depressing…"

"Don't I damn well know it."

He reached for the knob and twisted it as the pressure of the water from the numerous showerheads increased and warmed all around them.

With a growl in her soaked ear, he said, "Turn around," and she froze under him.

"Do I look like a 'turn around' kind of girl to you?"

"With prohibited vision you get to be whoever I want you to be, genius. Now _turn_."

He started her movement as he spun her silk wet skin to the face the cold wall. Lily rolled her eyes and gasped as her cheek and raised nipples hit the freezing tile. His hands on her hips and the intense wave of bliss that struck her when she felt his hard flesh bouncing against her back, made her shiver and fall into the wall harder.

"I bet you've never held a million fucking bucks in your hand."

She didn't understand the point but sighed, "Can't say I have."

Sands pressed his body into hers and the wall rougher and bite down on the nape of her neck.

"Well I have," he licked the skin when she winced at the short pain, "And you feel a million times better than that."

Lily smiled a little and reached behind her for one of his hands, leading it back around her dripping waist and pressed it down onto the heat between her thighs. He groaned serenely into her shoulder as she guided his first two fingers through the soaked folds of velvet skin, reaching for places he'd already been a dozen or more times through the night and morning. A place that never got old, but only better with time.

"Like I said," he murmured as he found a steady rhythm in and out of her, "_Amazing_…"

Lily moaned without words and left his hand on her throbbing center to reach around his neck and pull her body up from the tile floor of the shower. She was being held by nothing but two hands, one moving throughout her body in scissoring circles and the second pinching and agitating her right breast and the peak that had long since formed and burned.

"Jesus," he sighed in her ear as he forced his fingers deeper inside, "It's like screwing a spider monkey…"

She couldn't help to laugh as she felt every bit of her consume and tighten around his fingers, pulling for the last source of pleasure she had ever known in the world. Her grip on his neck and hair made everything come rushing down again as the blood shot to her head and the warm sap from within her covered his hand under the steamy water.

"Jeff…"

He let his thumb rove over her pulsing clit as he settled her back on the tile floor.

"Say it."

She breathed with spasm and reached behind her to take hold of his solid cock.

"I want _this_ now."

He pushed her against the wall again, cheek to tile, breasts to tile, and his skin to every bit of hers.

"Sure you can dig it?"

Tired as it was, she softly nodded against the dripping wall of the shower.

"I can't hear a nod, Hanson."

Lily laughed and with a whisper returned the words that sent him over every imaginary edge.

"I can _dig_ it."

And without so much as a second separating time, he grabbed a fistful of her wet hair in his hands, held onto her right hip, and drove himself upwards inside of her as she cried out. Her entire body left the ground again as her wet mold slid against the wall with his forceful thrust. Her head reeled and her heart beat like a wild drum, asking for more.

He suckled on her ear as she relaxed into the intrusion, the water streaming and the foggy mist blocking her vision of him. She could taste the stale run-off of his cologne on her tongue and she could feel his fingers ripping into the tender skin on her hip as he ground his own against her harder in circles.

"Still digging it?" He asked with a joking darkness.

She bit her lip and held the back of his neck again, "_Still_."

"Good."

Sands held onto her body tight as he released his rocking flesh to the tip and then with a simple twist of her nipple at the tile wall, he plunged inside of her to the hilt again, groaning out in release of tension. Lily followed suit as her cheekbone was crushed to the wall, again and again in fast, angry movements.

She cried out and he left heated lip trails on her neck.

He howled in her ear and she whispered incomprehensive sweetness in his.

"Lily…_Tiger Lily…"_

Her skin tingled even worse at the sound of his voice in the impossible fog, calling her that in the deep throes of his body and hers tied together. Lily moaned out for him as she felt herself falling harder into the blast she knew was arriving quickly. He held her gently and drove harshly and it left her going mad between him and the wall. She felt barriers inside of her clench and contract a million times over his thick shaft, drawing it further within until it was all she could feel anymore.

"Jeff, please…"

He granted the wish on her tongue as he forced himself hard against her, touching the magic key that made her eyes gloss over and roll back into her head as it fell to his shoulder. She could feel Jeff continue to move through the waves of her release as he vied for his own, over and over again. The grunting and growling soothed her into a near sleep and only seconds later she sensed herself being filled with his burning, wet liberation. It trickled down between her thighs and to the tile below but he never let her go from mid air, still a part of him.

His arms consumed her same as the water and the heat and the waves of ridiculous pleasure still did. With her head resting on his shoulder and his lips tickling her ear, she heard his deep breath in her temporary blindness and finally understood what it was like for him. She understood how he knew her so well without seeing her. Lily finally realized what a simple touch in darkness and fog, or a breath, could do for someone in Jeff's position.

And in the midst of her epiphany she heard his voice again, soft and somber.

"Lily, I…"

He stopped to recollect his thoughts and to kick himself one last time before he allowed the words to flow.

"I lo--"

The peace was broken by the same thing that always seemed to be an interruption with them; the ring of an insistent phone call. Lily slid down and out of his arms but turned around to hold onto him still in the echo of the ring and the drifting shower haze. She looked up to see his face, twisted and confused and annoyed and she held his cheeks softly.

"You what?"

"No. I can't."

The phone continued bothering his mind as he fell with Lily against the wall, his head resting in exhaustion and sickness in the crook of her neck as she cradled him.

"Jeff, just tell me."

She heard him sigh as the phone stopped ringing and his forehead rolled on her wet skin.

"I can't do it yet. I thought I could…" he pulled away and stumbled back to find the handle of the shower door, "…but I can't say it to you yet, Lil."

"Fine."

He stopped for a moment, halfway out and into the bathroom. His face turned up and towards her voice again as he felt her hand caressing his tight shoulders.

"Don't say it. But I can't wait to tell you anymore."

Sands felt as if he were ready to pass out and fall to the tile floor, cracked skull, blood and all. Lily wrapped her arms under his and pressed her silk body into his with a ghostly whisper.

"I love you, Sheldon. More than the first time if that's even possible."

Somehow he found the strength in his weakness to wrap both of his arms around her under the cascading water and be nothing but grateful for the fact that he could. She was like vicodin with a heroine chaser, like tequila and the sun, like a gun with flaming, vengeful bullets. She tore through him like a knife with a feather for a blade.

"I've always loved you. And I'm not going anywhere. Not until you tell me you feel otherwise."

He knew he wasn't going to do that; there was no _otherwise_ with her. There was everything or _more_. He felt her kiss his chest and neck before she slid away from him and out of the shower again. And while he had previously wanted to do the same, he couldn't now. She'd gone and left him motionless; left him without legs rather than eyes. She'd left him standing under the stream of hot water, freezing to death without her skin to warm him, and weak in every bone.

He knew the denial wasn't going to last much longer. His breakdown was well on its way.

* * *

**Boston**

_March 3rd__, 1996_

* * *

'_**Pick up the phone…call her…tell her you were stupid and angry and that it wasn't her. Fix this thing for the hundredth time because you have nothing else in the world going for you but her. Tell her you're sorry that…that you were selfish and greedy…and didn't think about her first. You should always think about her first. It's your job. She can't be your wife if you don't put her before yourself. Fucker.'**_

_He stood in the kitchen of his apartment in the dark. There was a half empty bottle of vodka at one end and a pizza going cold because he was too confused to open the thing up and eat something. There was a framed photograph staring him down from the breakfast bar in front of him. It was something bright and sunny, a place and a moment that a year ago, was right. It was a beach, a shoreline, and he was kissing her on it. Simple, perfect, and memorable in so many good ways, that it ultimately became painful._

_He shoved the picture down and out of sight on the counter as he stepped around and wandered into the hazy living room. He knew what he did wrong, the things he said and all those he forgot to say. He had told her the case with Tommy wasn't going to be an easy one, and he'd even warned her it wouldn't be a quick one. But he had promised her that he would call and visit when he was in town. He had promised that he would marry her the second it was over and that nothing would stand in his way._

_Even though the case was still in full throttle and getting more dangerous by the second, he knew he'd screwed up. She didn't want to talk to him, or see him, or be anywhere near him. He'd lied to her a long while back, when he said he wouldn't change himself for the benefit of his job. And yet here he was, working as a specialized trainee for the CIA, attempting to take down one of America's heaviest criminal rings, and he was forgetting to call her or write her or even attempt to come home for Christmas. As far as he knew, she wasn't talking to her brother either._

_He stood at the sliding doors that looked out over the north end of the city. He could just make out the lights of Fenway and the faintest sound of the cheering crowds in the streets below. The Red Sox raked Chicago clean that night, and they had both missed it. They had their season tickets, they had their hearts set on going, and when he called her for the first time in three weeks, two hours before the game, she had said only one thing to him before she hung up. __**'I thought you were dead, you selfish son of a bitch.' **_

_And he knew he had deserved nothing more and probably worse._

_Grabbing the phone from the couch where he had thrown it, he quickly dialed the seven numbers that would lead him right to the answering machine of her apartment. He didn't care, he only had to hear himself out; to tell her like it was. He just had to let her know that his intentions were all good, although they appeared shitty from every aspect of reality._

_The phone rang six times at least, every ring longer and harder. He tried to imagine her sitting there in the empty darkness of her bedroom, or living room, or kitchen, listening and counting every ring. He pictured her with a glass of wine, an aching head like his, and wearing nothing but his clothes. She always wore his clothes when she was mad at him, her excuse being that she was trying to put herself into his mindset, trying to figure out why he did what he did to hurt her._

_He smiled at thought and heard the final, all knowing eighth ring before it clicked to her classic machine tone._

'_**Hey, you've reached Lily's place.'**_

'_**And Jeff's.' **_

'_**No, he only sleeps here.'**_

'_**Yeah…if that's what you want to call it.'**_

'_**Just leave a message and I'll get back to you when I'm not busy.'**_

'_**Busy with me.'**_

_There was a laugh he knew all too well, a screech and another click. It was the message he knew well enough to repeat aimlessly in sleep or even when intoxicated, as was his current state. A hundred people knew that message. Lily's mother got a kick out of it more than anyone. Tommy cringed at it but laughed and always left a message in response to it. It was a part of them, a part of them slowly dying at the moment._

_A few seconds passed before he began to speak slowly, deeply into the receiver, planting his feelings for her to listen to. He knew he was speaking directly to her though, at the moment, as she stood there in his Rolling Stones tee and boxers, chugging wine and biting her lip. He knew…_

"_Alright, you're standing right there at the counter aren't you? You've probably finished a bottle of that cheap Australian wine that you only drink when you're mad and hate the world and hate me. I know you don't waste the good stuff on bad days…and I know you're probably reaching for a second bottle, the one under the sink…next to the bug spray." He laughed thinking about it, "You really need to find a new hiding place for that stuff, babe."_

_His head was reeling as he walked onto his balcony, the one that had a straight shot down to the tired end of Boylston Street where it hit Yawkey Way, and watched as a few drunks lingered in Boston gear. _

"_I know I have exactly five and half minutes before this thing cuts me off…so I'm not going to rush it. I'm going to let you think that I'm begging you to take me back, or meet me at Finn's for a drink, or let me come over there and make love to you. I'll let you think that Hanson, because I want you to realize that I'm not playing that game anymore, I've used up my chances with the free card."_

_He took a deep breath, slumped to the brick ground, his back to the harsh railing and pulled his guitar onto his lap. Release was easy to find when he began to strum. _

_**She wore faded jeans and soft black leather  
She had eyes so blue they looked like weather  
When she needed me I wasn't around  
That's the way it goes, it'll all work out.**_

_He sang to her, like he always used to do, when he was a good guy. He tried to remind her in five minutes or less just how much he wanted to go back to being that guy, how he wished he'd never changed on her and let his promises fade. Jeff knew he was a stupid, and selfish and fighting upstream. But he also knew it was worth it. __**  
**_

_**  
There were times apart, there were times together  
I was pledged to her for worse or better  
When it mattered most I let her down  
That's the way it goes, it'll all work out.**_

_There was a definite pause as he felt the message's chances growing shorter, and knew there were only seconds to spare for her. He stood up and walked back inside, thinking, breathing, defining the moment even further than what he felt might just work. The song was one of her favorites, of hundreds that were her favorites. Funny thing was, it had grown on her because he'd insisted so long ago that the song reminded him of her. Whether he had foreshadowed his own mistakes or not, didn't matter now._

"_I don't know what else to say to you anymore. I've said it all a million times, so why the hell should you believe it again now, right…" he hit himself in the head as he concluded the words._

"_I do love you Lily, whether you seem to think so at times or not, I can't stop…it would kill me to stop wanting you. It's killing me right now, being two blocks away from your skin…and your lips…and I just want to run over there through the crowds of people and bang on that door until someone buzzes me in. I want to run up those stairs like a fucking mad man and kiss you like you've never known I could before…"_

_The phone beeped twice as a last warning and he fell to the couch, concluding softly._

"_Just, don't give up on me so easily, Hanson. I swear to God I won't let you down…"_

* * *

Lily wrapped herself in a towel and dried her hair before going out into the room again to find out who had been so desperate in calling the room. She assumed as much that it was Shane or one of the guys and checked her cell phone and Jeff's to find that she had been right. Somehow in the scheme of time wasted in the shower, they had called a total of five times and left messages for each. She didn't bother listening to them and instead dialed Shane.

It rang only once before she answered.

"_Hey, what the hell took you so long? We've been trying you for half an hour."_

"I know. I was in the shower."

"_And what about that brilliant brother of mine? He can't answer a phone?"_

"Oh…" Lily glanced back toward the bathroom where she saw Jeff struggling to find a towel, "…I think he was asleep."

"_A huh,"_ Shane replied with a giggle. _"Well, we were trying to call to tell you to pack your bags."_

"Why? Is the case done?"

"_Yeah right, Lily." _

"So what's up then?"

"_Tuzla skipped town while we were training you yesterday."_

Lily saw Jeff coming out of the bathroom with his glasses replaced and a towel covering his lower portion. He was wringing out his wet hair and sifting through their clothes at the end of the bed.

"Where did he go?"

His attention was caught when she asked the question into the receiver.

"_America's playground, Doc Harvard."_

She heard Carter chuckle the answer into the phone where he must have been beside Shane. Jeff came at her with a handful of his clothes and slumped onto the bed at her side where he could hear the back and forth conversation.

"Is that Shane?"

Lily brushed her palm down his wet cheek and whispered, "Yeah." And then she heard Shane in the receiver again.

"_We've got a flight out of here at 11."_

She still didn't even know where they were talking about going and asked again.

"Where are we chasing him to?"

"_Vegas, Lily!"_

She heard the three of them chant back at her simultaneously and her eyes immediately turned to see the look on Jeff's face. He didn't say anything at first; he just sat there, as if he was thinking about it, plotting the potential risks and benefits of it all. And then when the silence went on for too long and she heard Shane trying to hang up and telling her them to pack their bags and meet in the lobby in an hour, she heard Jeff finally whisper peaceably at her side.

"Vegas or bust, baby."

"_There's one more thing that intelligence mentioned, and it's not good."_

"What?"

"_Tulza had guys on the inside somewhere in the hotel all this time, and well, he apparently found you out."_

She gulped nervously and watched Sands' hands draw into tight fists.

"_He knows you're Tommy's sister."_


	28. Walk Your Line

****

Walk _Your_ Line

McCarran Airport – Las Vegas, Nevada

_3:50 PM_

* * *

"Yeah…yeah…okay…right…248 got it….yeah…."

Lily and Carter looked from one another to Shane, confused and rolling their eyes with laughter.

"Cactus Road…yeah…a huh…alright…yeah…"

She felt Carter lean down and whisper into her ear jokingly, "Pay attention Hanson, this is how the _professional_ killers communicate."

She smiled up at him crookedly as Shane hung up.

"Jack says Tuzla's got guys set up in four different hotels on the strip."

"Where's Tuzla?" Carter asked.

"They think he's hiding out at Treasure Island. He's been known to hang around that one before when he's out here."

"What an idiot."

"Yeah," Lily agreed, "Why would he go there again? It's like he wants to get caught."

Shane smiled and grabbed her bag from the ground as they turned toward the car rental desk.

"I assume it's because he owns it."

"What doesn't he own…?"

Lily heard Jeff's deep growl behind her and she reached for his hand to guide him.

"Well he doesn't own the Cactus Road Motel, which is where intelligence says he's bound to end up when he realizes we're here."

"Cactus Road Motel…that's the one that--"

"Yeah." Shane answered Sands fast. "It is."

Confused, Lily looked between them as they made it to the car rental counter.

"It's what?"

Neither of them wanted to say anything. But while Shane and Andy dealt with getting the transportation, Jeff took her aside.

"What's the big deal about this motel?"

"It's not something you need to know."

"I don't care. I want you to tell me," she demanded of him softly in the crowds of people.

"Jesus," he growled, throwing his head back, "You really are a masochist aren't you?"

"Maybe, but tell me."

Jeff reached out and took hold of her upper arms, trying to quiet the conversation for safety.

"I'm only going to tell you if you swear to God you won't go crazy on us. There's too much at risk out here."

"I won't. I swear."

"Alright listen," he sighed and tried to step a little further off to the side where he didn't hear anyone. "When Tommy and I were running surveillance on Tuzla years ago, he pulled this same stunt on us and left Boston for Vegas when he sensed we were getting close to catching up with him."

"Did you guys come to Vegas too?"

The fear in her voice struck him, "Yeah, we had to follow him. We had to…"

Jeff paused in dark thought and Lily held his arm tight.

"What is it?"

He sighed, "It was a kidnapping. Do you remember the girl your brother was with before we took the case, the one he met before he left Jump Street?"

Lily gulped, "Ginny?"

"Yeah. Ginny."

"What about her? Did Tuzla…" she gasped with a hand over her mouth as Jeff tried to soothe her with his palm on her cheek, "…did he take her? Is that why we never heard anything from her?"

He nodded and she felt the tears well in her eyes.

"What did he…" she couldn't finish the statement and didn't have to.

"The Cactus Road Motel is where we found her, with five or six other girls."

"Found her? What do you mean, dead?"

"No, no. But, close to it."

Lily let the tears roll down her cheeks and burn her. She'd known Ginny well in the time her brother had been with her, almost two years. She was so sweet, so down to earth and would never hurt anyone. But apparently someone was willing to hurt her to warn her brother and Jeff.

"She was bruised really bad and bleeding from blade cuts. She had been raped quite a few times."

Sands had to swallow oxygen just to keep from vomiting at the revival of the memory in his mind. He heard Lily's deep sobbing and he pulled her into his arms, rocking her back and forth in the noisy airport.

"I never wanted to tell you any of that. Your brother was never the same after it though. Tommy's head was in the wrong place to finish the case out, he was too angry. He wasn't worried about protecting himself anymore; he just wanted to get Tuzla back for what he did to Ginny."

She clung to his shirt and breathed heavily before looking up and whispering.

"Is that why you were so mad when Shane got shot?"

"Yeah. She's trying too hard to avenge Tommy and not worrying about the danger of it all. Same with you," he stoked her hair and kissed the top of her head, "I don't want you going into this thing with a death wish for vengeance. 'Cause Tuzla won't think twice about putting a bullet through you too. Especially now that he knows who you are."

"Well how do I keep him from killing me first then, if he knows I'm Tommy's sister?"

She leaned back in his arms as he stroked small circles on her back. He was thinking hard about what could be done, what could protect her when they finally did run into the riff of madness. An interruption cut through though when Shane and the guys came over to announce the rental trucks waiting for them outside.

"Come on, we're staying at the _Venetian_ across from Tuzla's."

Carter insisted that Lily and Sands ride with him and they agreed before following him out of the automatic doors of the airport.

The heat hit her face like a hundred knives and she sucked in the last bit of good air she could before she felt the heat of something even more determined on her neck and in her ear, as Jeff leaned down and murmured, "I've got an idea to keep you safe."

Lily jumped in the backseat of the new SUV and Sands managed to get in the front with Carter. And as they pulled away from the curb of the airport and onto the strip, Sands asked with a quirky smirk, "Danny, think you can find us a costume shop?"

* * *

**Boston College – Hardey House Costume Party**

**April 11****th****, 1994**

* * *

_They barely made it out of the doorway of her room without ripping each other's clothes off. It had been another week come and gone with Jeff busy with training and Lily focused on getting her psychology thesis completed. And they couldn't help but take advantage of being together. _

"_Say something sexy and native and shit…"_

_She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck as he blew at the green feather on her headband. _

"_How about we go back inside my wigwam and you show me the dagger you're hiding in those tights white man?"_

"_Oh god, I am all for that…" he moved his mouth down hard against hers and she tore away his green hat as he reached for the knob on the door of her room again. He had almost opened it and gotten her inside, when a laughing voice interrupted them from down the hall._

"_Hey it's Sands, man!"_

_A crowd of people turned with cheering and raised red solo cups and he waved to them. _

"_Lily you didn't tell us he was coming."_

_She just smiled and replied, "Surprise."_

_Her friend Sam from down the hall, resident hippie, came tumbling toward them dressed like Lenny Kravitz and chuckled drunkenly as he smacked Jeff on the back._

"_Man, you must be Sacajawea, Lily…and Sands you're…Robin Hood?"_

_They laughed at Sam and shook their heads. _

"_We're Tiger Lilly and Peter Pan, Sammy." Lily replied as she took his beer and drank at it herself._

"_Oh yeah, yeah I see it now. Nice…"_

_Jeff reached down to squeeze Lily's bare ass underneath her beaded loin cloth and smirked as Sam went on._

"_So are you guys just gonna give us a show in the hall or are you coming downstairs to the real party?"_

"_We're coming…" Jeff replied as he nibbled the skin at Lily's neck and pushed Sam away._

"_Are you coming…or __**coming**__?"_

_Lily rolled her eyes and Jeff mumbled against her skin._

"_We're taking care of one at a time, Sam."_

_Sam laughed out loud and took his beer back from Lily before turning with a howl. _

"_Oh yeah…he's the man!"_

_And proving the point, Jeff ripped open the door to her room and shoved his little Indian princess inside. _

"_Alright, time for me to find that__** 'second star to the right'**__…"_

_Lily fell down to her bed with a tipsy head and wild smile and he covered her completely, both of the tearing away at unnecessary fabrics and feathers alike._

"_Where's the gold and hookah at you little savage?!" _

_He growled in her ear as she laughed out and pulled his hard flesh from inside of the green tights he wore. She let his cock rest between her thighs as she reached for his hand on her hip and drew it across and placed it against the moist heat at her throbbing center, the one that always throbbed for him._

"_It's right here."_

"_Aha…" he chuckled and tickled at her wet folds with his fingers before inching his hips closer to her, "Any last wishes?"_

"_Yeah." She sighed and dug her nails into his back rougher, more animalistic as he let the tip of him slid where his fingers still were toying through the soft hairs. "Make it so we never have to grow up."_

_Jeff fell down to her mouth and took full control of her senses, tasting every bit of the strawberry gloss from her lips and letting his tongue wet inch by inch of her neck and jaw. _

"_I can do that." _

_He said forcefully as he drove deep within her, making her cry out his name. Little did either of them realize or care though, the commotion that her own agonizing, dominating screech had led to outside of the room. The hall became madness as hoards of drunk dorm room groupies in costume stood idly outside listening in, with Sam at the head of the crazed audience. _

"_I knew he was the man…didn't I say he was the man?!" He screamed out to his cheering posse. _

_Jeff and Lily could hear the noise but didn't think it was for them, and they preoccupation with one another felt too good to worry about it. She held onto him as tight as she could as he lifted her body from the mattress and ground roughly inside and out of her soaked, sweetened folds. Her wild mess of curls stuck to her chest and his with the sweat that was quickly dewing up between them, and she held fistfuls of his black hair to match the insanity as he thrust long and hard onto her most pleading spot._

_And in the rush and passion of the odd moment, she found herself screaming out something of irregularity._

"_Yes…oh, Peter Pan…yes!"_

_Sands slowed his movement at the call and looked down at her in the darkness of the room and bed, laughing madly. And it was in the short silence of their lovemaking that they could then hear the chanting more clearly from outside of the door, as the hall echoed with dozens of nosy drunks. _

"_Peter Pan…Peter Pan …Peter Pan …Pan…Pan…Pan…"_

_Lily giggled under him and wrapped her legs firmer around him. _

"_I do believe you're the official hero of Hardey House, Mr. Pan."_

"_I like being the hero of hard things."_

_She leaned up on her elbows and captured her lips in his as he slowly began to move inside of her again. They broke the kiss and he whispered in a deep growl against her neck as he thrust hard between her legs with the intense will power of the chanting popularity outside, "I love you, my little Tiger Lilly." _

_

* * *

_

"Let's see it, come out."

Lily looked herself over in the mirror of the changing room a third and fourth time, biting her lip at the image she saw.

"I don't know…I think it's too much."

Sands sat patiently playing with one of the wings that Carter had chosen for her.

"What the hell did you give her to put on, Danny?"

"I gave her--"

She interrupted them as she stormed through the curtain. "I look like a 1970's hooker."

Sands laughed and tried to picture it as he held his hand out for her.

"Come here."

Carter couldn't stop laughing and she gave him a crude glare before taking Jeff's hand where he sat and stepping between his thighs as he let his hands rove her body. He could feel sequins and a short leather skirt, and when he stood up to meet her height, he could feel a feathery top that was barely there at all, a bob wig and hoards of chunky jewelry.

"Yeah you sure _feel_ like you'd fit in down on the strip come sunset."

Lily hit him in the chest and he coughed back with a chuckle.

"Neither of you are funny. This is serious."

They tried to stop from laughing as she stormed away to the dressing room again. Jeff hobbled on his bad knee and grabbed a bunch of the stuff Carter had pulled from the shelves before chasing the sound of her pattering prostitute boots back through the curtain.

"Okay, you're right. It's serious, let me help you."

"Oh right, you can't even see what you're holding."

She rolled her eyes at him and fell in a slump to the bench of the dressing room, tearing off the leather boots one by one.

"I resent the trust you have for my other four senses, you know."

"What, are you going to sniff out the right disguise for me? Pick one by taste?"

They were silent for a long moment as Lily looked up at him and Jeff listened to the sound of her breath. And then when they couldn't commit to not doing it, they laughed out loud together.

Sands knelt down in front of where she was sitting and dropped the pile of costume wear to the floor.

"How do you want to be disguised?"

"I don't know."

"Well…" he rifled in the mountain of wigs and hats, "…why don't you go the easy route and dress up like everyone else out here. That way you don't stand out in a crowd."

"Okay." She agreed quietly and took the cowgirl hat and a blond, curly wig he was holding and placed them on top of her head. "Go western."

Sands smirked at her and tried to imagine the hat on her, "Yeah, fulfill one of my fantasies."

"Oh as if you've never slept with a cowgirl before."

She reached down and grabbed a pair of aviator glasses from the pile.

"Maybe so, but my fantasy is to sleep with one that has an ass like yours."

Sands leaned closer as he squeezed her thigh and handed her what felt like some sort of a seventies leather vest with tassels. He laughed when she groaned hesitantly.

"What the hell is it? A vest?"

"It's a leather halter top with threads, and there's no way…"

"Oh come on." He brushed his mouth hotly over hers. "Indulge me instead of tugging on the ole' short and curlies."

Lily rolled her eyes, ripped the top from him and stood up to put in on in place of all the sequins. Sands took a seat on the bench and listened to her sigh and giggle a little at what she saw. He bit his lip anxiously when she finally turned towards him and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"Well? Do I get another pat down from the officer in charge?"

"No need to ask, sweets. Come here."

Lily stepped between his legs again as he reached up and around her body, touching the waistband of her jeans and the worn leather belt attached, the feathery dreads that hung down against her taut, warm stomach, and then up to grab her breasts where they spilled out of the hippy top.

"I like this part a lot."

She placed her hands on his over her breasts and moved them up to her hat and wig instead.

"How about the hair?"

"Brunette, red-head or blonde?"

"Playboy bunny blonde."

He chuckled darkly with a tease, "Aw, for me?"

"Sure."

"How nice of you."

He held her cheeks in his hands where the tiny golden ringlets twisted on his fingers, just smiling at what he couldn't see, but what he could wildly picture from feeling it.

"So do you think it will work?"

"_Definitely_."

Sands kissed her quick on the corner of her mouth, the on her nose and finally on her lips under the brim of her cowgirl hat. And when he pulled away again she thanked him and grabbed her own stuff before skipping out of the curtain without him.

"I'm gonna go pay for all this."

He had to rub away the insistent hardness in his jeans before he could leave the room, and when he did he managed to stumble to where he heard Lily and Carter laughing at the front register of the store. He wondered if she was purposefully doing this to him now, leaving without assistance all the time, to see if he could handle and hack it on his own, as well as he claimed he could. He was slowly beginning to tire of it and wished he could have her hand or arm instead of using his own as makeshift sea-urchin feelers to find everything.

Sands tripped toward the counter and leaned on it beside her.

"Is that all today, ma'am?"

Lily was going to say yes and hand the man her credit card when she noticed a small plastic bucket of furry objects on the counter and reached out to dig through it, laughing. They were mustaches, of all shapes and sizes and colors. She grabbed one she liked and turned to Jeff quietly, pressing it under his nose and above his lip as he jerked from the unexpected sensation.

"What the hell?"

"One to add to your collection. From _me_."

When her hand moved away his replaced it, and he stroked the furry friend under his nose with a laugh.

Carter nodded in approval, "She picked a good one, man. You look like Jeff Foxworthy."

The western store owner chuckled as he rang up the mustache, "$65.81 little lady."

Lily handed him her card and then looked back at Sands as she stroked the mustache with a smile.

"No, you look _cool_, like Waylon Jennings…"

"Yeah if Waylon was a porn star." Carter added with a belt of infectious laughter.

"Okay, now that I like the sound of."

He took Lily's hand from where it was on his new mustache and pressed her palm to his lips, kissing the tender skin lightly with a twisted 'thank you' smirk. It was the first she'd gotten and she was thoroughly grateful for it, with or without the words to follow suit. She just needed to know she was inching her way closer to his heart and trust again.

Carter tried to ignore the closeness he still saw between them and offered to help Lily with her bags back to the truck. But this time, Sands and her rode in the backseat together, like two classic Vegas country stars gone completely bad. They were on their way to the hotel to meet with Shane and Andy when he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her deep into him, whispering.

"Did I ever tell you I was glad you got on that plane back in Washington?"

Lily rested her head on his shoulder and rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm pretty sure you _chastised_ me for it."

"Oh, well that was stupid…" he kissed her temple where he felt the blonde curls meet her straw hat.

Lily patted his cheek, "Whether you like it or not…I'm walking this line with you, _Johnny_."

"I think that's sexy as hell, _June_."


	29. Absence and Misguided Hearts

**Absence and Misguided Hearts**

Venetian Hotel & Casino – Las Vegas

_Delmonico's Steakhouse_

**8:45 PM**

* * *

It was surprising still to Lily, how very nonchalant four CIA agents could be, especially inside of one of the cities' most secure hotels. She sat next to Jeff, barely paying any attention to the hushed conversation being spewed between them, mostly because she didn't understand most of the technical, agency type gibberish that was coming out of Shane or Andy's lips. So she sipped meekly at her red wine and picked through her $100 plate of pasta as she pretended to listen in.

Sands' kept his hand on her leg under the table the entire meal, sensing her disinterest.

"Andy already has the entire top floor of Treasure Island wired, right?"

Shane shoved a forkful of steak into her mouth as she raised her brow at him.

"Yeah, it was easy. Tuzla is tapped to a pulp."

"How did you find out what room he was in anyway?" Carter asked with an equally full mouth.

"Believe it or not, he checked into his suite under his own name."

"You've got to be kidding me?"

"Nope."

"Is this guy finally losing his damn mind?"

Sands shook his head and swallowed lobster before answering, "He lost it a decade ago."

"So he's running the city under the name Jimmy Tuzla…did intelligence say anything about the motel yet?"

"No." Shane replied, "But that doesn't mean we didn't wire it anyway."

"You did?"

"We did." Andy chimed in with a proud smile.

"We also rented two rooms."

Lily suddenly became aware of the conversation and honed in when she saw Jeff do the same.

"Rooms for us I assume?"

"Gee, however did you guess that one, Shel?"

He growled at the hazing in her voice but Lily interrupted the beginning of their battle.

"Are we all going to the motel instead?"

"No."

"Then who--"

Shane cut her off with a pointed finger at her and Carter beside one another.

"You and Danny are working surveillance. It's safer there right now anyway."

Lily looked up at Danny beside her with a nervous glare, but he patted her back to reassure her.

"No worries, Hanson. We'll just keep an eye out for someone to show up and try some shit."

"Oh very technical sounding there, Carter," Andy chided him.

"Hey, I like to simplify our dealings for the ladies…"

The conversation dwelled into the logistics of their separation and what sort of contact would have to be kept, but all Lily could do was watch the way Jeff's head hung over his plate, the way his hand on her leg had loosened and eventually fallen off. He wasn't satisfied with Shane's decision, but before Lily could voice her request for any additions in company at the motel, he spoke up.

"I don't know if sending Lily into that seedy hell hole is such a good idea."

Shane looked up at his solemn face and tinted glasses with a smug assumption.

"Carter will be there with her. He's the one that trained her anyway."

"Yeah man, she'll be safe with me. Besides," Carter wrapped his arm around Lily's shoulder and pulled her into him as she giggled anxiously, "She's more than capable of holding her own."

If he had them, he knew he'd be rolling his eyes at what he could sense was happening around him.

"I'm going with her."

"No, I need your help tagging the guys we pick up on the taps. You're the only one who knows their voices at all."

"What the hell does it matter who they are, they're all involved. Just arrest them."

Shane crossed her arms and fell back in her chair while the others were quiet and listening to the bickering siblings. At least they were in a private corner of the restaurant.

"We have to take this thing easy out here, you know that. We can't just jump on a herd of guys. We have to take them out one by one until there's no one left protecting Tuzla."

"That could take months."

"Or hours…depending on your cooperation, Jeff."

"I don't like the idea of that motel, or you sending Lily in to tackle it alone with Carter. Tell me you don't see the fucking danger in that choice?"

"Do _you_?"

Everyone paused at Shane's harsh response. Lily gulped her last sip of wine and clenched her fists against the awkward silence. But no sooner had the alcohol hit the pit of her stomach, than the entire table was jolted with his tumbling, half drunken body reacting to a million points of pain and vulnerability. Sands pushed away from his chair and swaggered through darkness to get out of the maze that was the restaurant to him.

"I'll follow him," Lily said peaceably, tossing her napkin down before running after him.

He was inches away from the pummeling into a waiter with a huge overhead plate of dishes, when she caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

"Jeff, wait a minute."

He stopped but only to let the uncertain patter of the waiter's step cross in front of him. Then he began pacing again, faster, with Lily slipping in attachment, but never releasing.

"You didn't have to leave. Go back and eat, Lily."

Lily tripped over his boot heels as they exited the restaurant for the main lobby of the hotel again, a squeak of rubber soles and tile being what halted the movement. She felt into his back and stayed there, her forehead resting against his black jacket, inhaling the stale cologne left behind.

"Shane's right you know, I'll be okay with Carter out there," she whispered.

"Oh you think so, huh?"

His voice was cruel, lacking confidence when he turned and felt her breath on his neck and chin.

"You think running surveillance right under Tuzla's fucking nose is going to keep you alive?"

"Someone has to do it."

"Yeah, Carter. Andy. My brilliant, renegade sister. Not _you_."

Her brow twisted at his words, sensing through the disgust a more sincere notation. Something he was saying out loud, but could be heard through the blank spaces of grey in him. Lily took both of his distressed, tightened hands and unwound them in hers.

"I swear I'll be fine. I know how to protect myself now and I have my great _disguise_."

"Right," he replied sarcastically.

"Don't think I can?"

"It's not that." Sands moved his hands with hers until he could feel her face and he held her cheeks warmly in his palms. "You shouldn't have to worry so damn much about protecting yourself."

"Oh no?"

He shook his head as his thumbs stroked her face softly.

"Who should worry about it then?"

Sands sighed and let go of her face to keep the demons at bay a little longer. Neither of them said anything and time passed them by like a Ferris wheel in a clouded, angry sky. She didn't know how else to communicate with him, not when she didn't know what he was thinking. Not when she didn't trust the look on his face or the protruding veins in his hands.

So she turned away and left to find Carter instead.

* * *

**Boston – Quincy Market Café**

_February 27__th__, 1996 – 3:45 pm_

* * *

_He sat quietly in the corner of the otherwise noisy restaurant, watching out of the front window to the breezy market square. Jeff didn't know if she would really show up like she promised, she was already fifteen minutes late. He assumed just as easily that he'd been stood up, purposefully, so that she might prove a point to him. A point of what it's like to sit and wait for someone to come, who never does. Even though only blocks of city streets separate them. _

"_Can I get you another cup of coffee?"_

_A sweet voice asked beside him, and he turned to see the waitress, as equally sweet in nature. Every woman who interrupted him throughout the long days looked like her in some way or another, this girl, with her long brown hair and dark eyes peeking out from under a spill of curly bangs, she looked like Lily a little. Just enough to cause him to stutter with a sigh when he answered. _

"_Please, thanks."_

_The girl took off with the cup to get him a fresh one and his eyes averted back through the glass panel window. He leaned on a fisted hand, biting his lip unbeknownst, and twisting his boots together under the table. The skies outside were grey, ready to let the rain fall any minute, and he almost hoped she wouldn't come and save herself the trouble of getting caught in a late February storm. _

_The waitress returned with a steaming cup of blackened coffee and smiled down at him before asking, "Would you like to order anything for the person you're waiting on?"_

_He thought about it, having completely forgotten he told anyone he was waiting for her, but then turned his face back up from the open swirl of his coffee cup to reply simply, "A cappuccino, I guess."_

_The girl nodded with a flirtatious eye and turned back toward the kitchen. _

_And almost as soon as his concentration was fixed back on the window, he saw the rain hitting the glass, and between the droplets, a pink polka-dotted umbrella swaying in the breeze. He thought to get up and help her inside the café, or to at the very least make himself endure what she was in the rain outside. And he would have, no doubt about it, if he hadn't seen someone else approach the umbrella and the brown haired girl underneath it first. _

_It was a guy by the height and weight distribution and boots tapping in the puddle beneath the umbrella she had offered for him to join her under. He saw her laugh a couple of times, and touch the person's arm a few more times, and he even saw the guy brush back a strand of her hair when it flew in front of her eyes. _

_Sure, he knew he should have gone out and interrupted whatever it was, letting the guy know just who she belonged to, still, if he had anything to do with it. Sure, he knew he shouldn't have sat there watching and wondering what it was. He should have been preventing it from even beginning. But he just couldn't help it, or move, or think to do anything about it. She looked so happy and that always did him in._

_He looked away to stir the sugar into his black coffee and to take a warming sip. He refused to look outside again until she was inside and the guy had disappeared. And a moment later, his hope was half restored when it all ended and he saw a wet pink umbrella being shaken out in the doorway of the café. _

_He heard more laughter and saw the cropped, blonde hair of the guy from outside as he dusted the rain out of it. He couldn't see Lily because of the height difference behind the high separating wall, but he could hear her as clearly as ever. _

"_That's fine. Just give me a call when you need the help. I'm free all weekend."_

_Then there was the guys' voice. "You're the best, Lily. Really, I owe you one."_

_She laughed again, softly to where it played on his senses. "I'll hold you to that."_

_Then the guy laughed with his goodbye and turned away outside of the café again, never revealing his face to Jeff at all. He was safe from being slaughtered that way at least. Lily came around the corner, her hair damp and her eyes solemn, a second later. He caught her gaze, not a happy one like it had sounded moments earlier, and watched as she slowly approached him. _

_He hesitated to move, but ever the gentleman when she was near Jeff slid from the booth and stood to help her with her umbrella and bag as she sat down on the bench across from his. Lily felt his hand on the small of her back, and even through her sweater, was affected by the genuine warmth of that which she had missed, as much as it had hurt to miss it. _

"_I didn't think you were coming." He said flatly as he sat down across from her again. _

_She looked at him as though she wanted to hit him and said meekly, "When I say I'm going to do something, I do it, Jeff."_

_He sighed, knowing the connation of her statement. And she was right. _

_He was going to begin begging her to listen to him and accept him again, but the waitress finally arrived back with the coffee he ordered for her and placed it warmly in front of Lily's unsuspecting face. _

"_Cappuccino." The girl said with a letdown smile as she realized Jeff must have been taken. _

_Lily's darted her eyes to Jeff in question of the drink and he nodded to assure her he'd ordered it._

"_Thank you." She replied to waitress, never intending for it to be for him as well. _

"_You're welcome. Let me know if you need anything else."_

_They both ignored each other a moment longer to smile at the girl and watch her walk away. And when they did turn back, Lily stared down at the drink he'd gotten her as the steam rose to warm her reddened nose from the cold rain, and Jeff watched her, wishing he could be the tiny droplets that were rolling down her cheeks and off of her eyelashes. _

_He knew she wasn't going to be the one to speak first, since he'd asked her to meet him there. So he took a strong sip of his coffee, and tapped his hands lightly on the table until he thought of how to begin. He had a million romantic opening lines, and a hundred more apologies, but instead the only thing that came out, was what he had tried to subside. _

"_So, who's the Ken doll?"_

_She glanced up at him from over the rim of her cup and twisted her brow in confusion._

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_The guy…the blonde, outside." He nodded at the window and she thought for a second before replying very simply, as if it meant nothing to anyone. _

"_Ty."_

"_Ty…hm." He sipped at his coffee to cover the jealously. But he knew that she saw it anyway._

"_My chem lab partner." _

_His eyes shifted from the window to her and then back to the rain._

"_Don't even start with me, Jeff. I didn't come here to be accused of whatever you're thinking…"_

"_I'm not thinking anything."_

"_Yeah right." She whispered out loudly, angered at that. _

"_What, so I can't be curious as to why my fiancé is hanging around with some good looking kid?"_

_She stared him down tensely. _

"_Don't you think I've earned the right to be a little jealous over the years?"_

"_No. You lost that right."_

"_Oh is that so?" He questioned back, the fury growing in him even though he knew she was still right in what she was saying, and that he was at complete fault._

"_When you don't call to tell your 'fiancé' that you're alive at the end of the day, and that she doesn't need to sit at home and cry herself to sleep wondering if you're lying in a gutter dead…" Her voice was almost too loud and she stopped to look around before returning quietly, but fiercely. "…then you lose the right to judge her."_

_He felt himself losing it all of it, not mentally, but emotionally. The bittersweet sadness that filled her eyes with a pre-cry gloss nearly sent him reeling into madness, like it always had. His eyes swayed down to see the flicker of her engagement ring, attached firmly but in a negotiable fashion on her wiry finger. He wanted to say a spell and make it stay there forever, but was worried of what its fate would be after this meeting was over. _

"_I haven't slept in four weeks. I've tried not to care or worry about you, since you don't seem to worry about whether I'm concerned for you, but it doesn't work. I still sit up by the phone, praying you'll call." _

"_Lily…"_

"_No, let me finish." _

_She was firm, and he accepted that the tables had turned completely into her control, where he imagined they belonged. _

"_The only reason I agreed to come here today, was because I wanted tell you that I'm done with it. I'm done, Jeff." His eyes were glazed in fear when he glanced up at hers. "I can't do it anymore, this twisted, sick thing you've left me in. You and my brother are the reason I came to Boston for school, and you have both abandoned me. And what's worse…" her knuckles tensed into a tight little fist, one he wished he could reach out and smooth over with his love, the love he felt boiling up deep within him. "…you don't call, either of you, ever. You don't write letters, you don't attempt to stop by when you're in town. I just don't get it." _

_She shook her head in her second, loosened hand and leaned over the coffee, ignoring his eyes. _

"_I love you, but I…" she paused to gulp and bring a sniffle back. "…I can't do this anymore. It's killing me."_

"_Lily, please. Just let me talk."_

"_About what?" Her eyes came back up suddenly, dark and cold._

"_I want you to let me explain."_

"_There's nothing left to say. I got your messages."_

"_There are a million things to say. I'm not going to let you just walk out of here."_

_He grabbed her hand quickly, holding it between both of his. She hated to admit that it was the best feeling in the world, the one she'd waited weeks and months for. She hated to admit he had a hold on her that was impossible to fight. But she also hated to admit that she had to. _

"_Jeff, don't." She tugged back as she reached for her bag and umbrella under the table. "I have to go."_

_She rose from her side of the booth, sliding out and carefully walking towards the door of the café, well aware of the fact that he had thrown down cash for the drinks and was following close on her heels, begging silently. _

"_Lily…Stop. Come on, don't do this."_

_She made it outside and back into the rain, struggling with her umbrella as he jumped out and down the steps to the brick square behind her. His hand on her arm, pulling her back toward him in the pouring storm scared her. _

"_Please, you don't have to just end it like this. You won't even give me a chance?"_

"_I've given you a thousand chances a year, for four years!" She yelled back, distraught with the annoying umbrella that refused to suddenly work. _

"_Give me one more. I'll fix it all this time."_

"_How? How are you going to change anything?"_

_Without warning, Jeff took her free hand into his and began pulling her through the drowning rain shower, across the square as she shouted at him and tried to pull away. _

"_Jeff, cut it out…let me go! There's nothing you can do…It's over." _

_He grinned in front of her as he continued to pull her along, refusing to accept anything she was saying because he knew better. After a few long minutes of struggling, she eased into his sensitive force and let him guide her until they made it to the shadow of a tree in the middle of the square and he stopped, turning to hold both of her hands. _

"_It's not over and you damn well know it. It's never going to be over with us."_

"_You can't just make me--" He cut her off, pressing his wet hand over her mouth as she stared up at him._

"_You better realize that I have every intention of driving you back to my apartment and making love to you until you forgive me."_

_She shook her head in his hand, drenched to the core, but knew it was what she wanted._

"_Yes. I'm going to touch and kiss every inch of you until you take me back." _

_Lily felt herself go weak under his dark, brooding eyes and sinister smile. The two things that nearly always did her in to ravished completion. She said nothing but didn't have to. The second she even attempted to open her mouth against his palm, he swept in and lifted her into his arms, and carried her the rest of the way through the rain and back to where his Trans Am was parked on the street. _

* * *

"Do you see rooms 84 and 85?"

Lily's eyes were glazed to the burning window of the SUV, watching as cars and blue room doors passed down the desert lot. She saw 81, then 82 and 83, and then she heard Carter turn back the wheel and pull in.

"Here we go. Right in the middle, that's good."

"Yeah?"

"Yep, gives us a fair chance of catching the bastards if they end up on either side of us."

He smiled coolly at her under the automatic light of the truck and then jumped out to grab their bags. Lily unbuckled, slid out and met him at the doorway of room 84, thanking him when he brought her suitcase to her.

"This place is pretty old so I doubt there's doors between the rooms…" He jammed the key in the lock of the room and opened it for her, peering around to check his point, "…nope. So if you need anything don't hesitate to come right over, okay?"

She nodded hesitantly and dropped her bag to the floor, standing feet away from him. He could easily tell there was something not quite right about the nervous way she was acting.

"Lily?"

She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"We can share a room if want. I don't mind, I guess Shane just assumed you'd be more comfortable with your own."

"Yeah…I think I'll be okay. But if I decide I'm not…"

Carter's mood nearly fell and then jumpstarted again at her last words and he smiled at her.

"There's a second bed waiting for you next door."

"Thanks Danny."

"Sure thing," he turned for the doorway again and leaned on it, a foot taller than her, as she held the door beside him. "If you see anything strange or hear anything, just call me or come and knock."

"I will."

"Cool."

They stared at one another longingly, not sure where the conversation was supposed to go or where their minds were running. Lily has always found Danny handsome, any time he would come into her office to woo Allie for the afternoon, she sighed with a little jealousy at how lucky her receptionist really was. He was a great guy, funny, charming, and he seemed to care her the way he did Allison, which had felt nice over the last two twisted weeks with Jeff.

Lily caught herself staring and smiled coyly with her head turned down. But the movement didn't last long, not when she felt the soft tips of a man's fingertips drawing her chin back up again. It was a different feeling than when Jeff held or touched her, and she'd determined this already. But it felt safe and good, despite it. Carter captured her blue eyes with his the same and grinned tightly as his face came nearer to hers at the panel of the door.

"You wouldn't mind if I…"

He didn't finish the question, but she knew how it would end.

"No," she whispered. "I don't."

He held her chin until he could take her face in both his hands and bring his warm lips to rest on hers. They weren't intimidating or threatening, they were soft, like his hands, and kind like his smile. And she felt she'd known they would be all along.

Carter's mouth soothed her anxiousness and her pain from her last words with Jeff. Lily felt revitalized all the more as he slowly moved back inside of her room, still holding her face against his and consuming her lips with his. She found her hands somehow taking the risk of pulling at his jacket and his beaten white tee tucked into his jeans. She then accepted that his moved down her face toward her arms and then her hips; his fingertips digging into the waistband of her jeans and pulling at her skin. And Lily understood exactly what she was doing when a moment later they fell to the well used old bed and began ripping at clothes left and right.

'_This is really stupid…this is so stupid…I don't really want to sleep with Danny…'_

His thoughts were nowhere near the same and somehow she sensed this too. Carter wanted it; he had wanted her all along this wild journey and she had hardly given him the time of day in comparison to her nights spent in Jeff's room. Danny was happy to have her now, happy to have her all to himself and she felt this when he left delicate kisses down her neck, over her bra and all across her revealed stomach.

'_Stop Lily…'_ the voice said clearly _'…stop this now. You don't want him.'_

She pulled at Danny's neck harder, wrapping her legs around him to fight away the sound of her own voice in her head, and tried to make the moment move along. She wanted it to be done with and not risk anymore contemplation about it. But what she wanted and what she needed were two very different, very high tempered sides of her, and the latter usually won out in the end.

"Danny."

He kept kissing her arms and chest but hummed a short response.

"Danny…I _can't_. I can't do this."

His face rose from her skin and hovered above hers for a moment. Carter understood where she was going with it, because he'd only hoped it wouldn't come between them. But nevertheless, it had.

"Is it me? Am I really that bad?" He laughed a little and pressed his forehead to hers.

"No, you're amazing. I swear. It's just…"

"You have a kinky fetish for blind CIA ops."

Lily could tell he was joking and she giggled too under him.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Hanson."

He kissed her forehead and sat up with her wrapped in his arms in the middle of the bed.

"I'm glad you really care about him. Sands needs somebody to love him. Trust me."

She smiled and hugged him tight, never wanting to let go.

"I just wish he would love me back."

* * *

"_Come on, deadweight."_

_Lily spun back on the heels of her fishing boots to see Jeff struggling for breath behind her. _

"_Watch it, kid…" he sucked in the cold November air and leapt forward down the path, "I'm your ride back home."_

"_Do you really think I can't get back without your car? I grew up here, remember."_

_He breathed in deep and followed her still as she tackled the sandy path like a pro. She was in her element, in the adventure of this magical spit of coastal land, even with the potential for snow flurries. She was perfect to him that day like so many others; her brown hair blowing in the wind, her brother's oversized sweatshirt and her worn Levi's. God, she was a sight and a half to him. _

"_Jeff hurry up before we miss them!"_

_He hustled as best he could; arguing her rationale the entire way to the beach._

"_I still don't believe you."_

"_Fine then, don't. But come on…" she skipped back and grabbed his cold hand, pulling him along until the grassy dunes narrowed out onto the wet, yellow sand. _

_He half ran into her when she finally stopped moving and the wind blew a gust of her hair in his face, making him drown from the intoxication of fresh cranberries that she seemed to so well contain._

"_Look!" _

_Lily pointed down the beach a ways and his eyes turned to follow her finger. _

"_I told you."_

_Piled up and tumbling away the blistery afternoon of ice and wind on the freezing shoreline, were a hundred or more seals. The waves rushed over there leathery bodies like they were nothing more than the rocks of the Cape, and he couldn't help but be completely, utterly stunned by the sight. _

"_My God, that's insane," he whispered in her ear against the wind. _

_She turned around fast and look him fiercely in the eye, even a foot shorter. _

"_Don't ever doubt me again, Detective Sands."_

_He grinned wildly and picked a strand of her hair from between her pink glossed lips and then raised his hand with three adjoining fingers._

"_You have my word. Scout's honor."_

* * *

"_Scout's honor_…" he mumbled into his pillow with a fair portion of drool to match.

'_Don't ever doubt me again…'_

There words on his mind played with his sense of sleep and reality, making him mutter through the halfway point of again.

"I won't…I won't doubt you…_Lily_."

The name alone, when it left his dreaming mouth forced him completely awake to darkness still. He listened to the quiet suite around him, hearing nothing but the low buzz of the ceiling fan and the rush of honking cars and taxis a dozen floors below. He sat up where he'd passed out on the couch and rubbed at his face, trying to think of something other than sand and ice and seals and pink lips.

"Shit. I can't deal with this anymore…"

He didn't know what time it was, but he didn't care.

He didn't particularly know how best to go about achieving what refused to let him sleep, but it didn't matter really, because he was going to do it anyway.

He didn't know how she haunted him so well, but he sat for the first time, in the middle of the night, rubbing the pain in his head away with nothing but utter fascination in the fact that she did.

And maybe that's why he stumbled to his feet and started feeling around for his clothes.


	30. The Way I Loved, Love You

**The Way I _Loved...__Love_ You**

Jeff's Apartment – Boylston Street

_February 27__th__, 1996_

* * *

_Lily stood to the side of the doorway in the hall, watching as Jeff hurried with the key and turned the knob. He glanced over to offer her the right of way and she could only stare back for a moment, thinking hard about what she was doing and what he would be un-doing just to make sure that she remained his. She hadn't wanted it to be this way again; she had wanted to end the pain finally. But somehow he had been right when he said that it was never going to be over. Not with the two of them._

"_Don't even think about running now." He smiled and continued to hold the door wide for her. "You know I'll chase you clear across the state."_

_Her eyes went from the darkened, inside of his apartment to the doorframe and his equally blackened eyes peering down into her. _

"_I don't think this is a good idea."_

_He stood tall again, not liking where she was going, and softly took hold of her hand, leading her inside. He didn't bother with turning on lights, and instead walked her around to the middle of the large, studio living room, stopping to look at her in the darkness. _

"_I wish you'd give me a chance. I really do want you to know how sorry I am."_

"_Jeff, I know you're sorry. But you're always sorry." She tore her hand away from his and flew down onto the leather couch. "I don't want 'sorry' anymore. I want you to make promises and mean them."_

_He threw his head back to look at the high ceiling, and then fell down to his knees on the floor in front of her at the couch, his hands on her legs as he looked up at her. _

"_I promise I love you."_

_Lily only looked down at him silently; convinced nothing would change her mind. _

"_I promise I'll always take care of you and I'll give you everything you need."_

_She rolled her eyes, "Except you."_

"_I'll give you all of me, I swear. You can have anything of me you want. It's yours."_

_Her gaze softened when she caught his again to see the seriousness in his deep eyes. _

"_I can't lose you, and I'm not just saying that. I'll die without you." _

"_You have a funny way of showing it lately." _

_He nodded, accepting that she was speaking only truth. "I know, I've managed to really screw up the last few months and I know it wasn't fair to you. But I didn't want to get you involved in all this stuff. And Tom feels the same way. It's not good for you or your mother."_

_Lily understood this part of their job, the part that put anyone they cared about at risk, but she still thought it was ridiculous that they just ignored her for so long, as though she never existed. But she knew how she felt about him, and knew it would probably never change or fade, even if she ran from him for a million years._

_Quietly she spoke the last words, "I would rather be in danger with you, Sheldon…than safe with anyone else."_

_After this was said, they both remained quiet for a long time, Jeff sitting below her, looking out of the large glass wall of his apartment, contemplating how best to continue. And Lily sat above him, her legs curled onto his couch with his hands soft atop them, as she tried to hold back tears and her own wicked lust at the same time. Eventually though, when she least expected it in fact, it all became too much for her and she found herself moving from the couch and out into his kitchen. He didn't interrupt her, since it was as much her place as it was him most days, and simply listened to the clanking of glassware and bottles through the cupboards. _

_He stood up slowly when he saw her making her way back to the living room with a single glass of wine for herself. She stopped in the middle of the room and rug again, staring at him intently as she gulped deeply and wildly at the red liquid swirling about in the glass. He smirked, not knowing where to begin to stop staring and loving her._

_When he felt sure she was going to finish off the wine and attempt another exit, he watched her turn around at the stereo system to switch it on. Nirvana hissed out, the CD she had bought him for him at Christmas; it poured out from the place he had left it paused at. She smiled, standing before him in the silent darkness of early evening, with the rain coming down all around their heads outside the brick building, and the tragic sound of Kurt Cobain's melody flowing through their ears and senses. Lily bit her lip once and then slowly began unbuttoning her coat. Her wet boots came off and her coat slid down to follow it into the start of a pile. _

_Jeff watched her, not saying a word until she finally did. Looking up at him with readied eyes, she crookedly whispered out of her mouth, "I want you to make love to me like I'm a stranger; like you've never known me before." He didn't know how to react and so only moved slowly toward her as the music picked up in the black air, listening in as she went on softly. "I want to remember what we used to be like. Will you?" _

_He breathed deep, biting his tongue as he saw her motion toward her own body, and then came across to completely consume her with his arms as he pushed her back swiftly to the nearest wall of the living room. _

_In her ear, as he kissed and nibbled below it, he growled, "You don't even have to ask."_

_Lily felt her heart suddenly race against his chest as he pressed her into the wall, his fingers working quickly on all unnecessary buttons and zippers between them. When he had managed to get her into only her bra and panties, and himself into nothing more than the thin cotton of his pleading boxers, he lifted her up and laid her down on the couch again, falling between her tight legs. _

_If he had really wanted to keep track, he imagined they had broken the couch in a good 300 fucks ago, but he didn't want to worry about it, it was better just knowing how cherished it had become. And as the years passed him by from then on, he would sit on the couch from time to time and ponder it all, sometimes even attempt to bring women back to his place and re-christen the old, worn brown leather. But somehow he never could do it. Because every time he tried, he always thought of the last girl he had taken across it's cushions, the last time he had taken that girl in his life, and it made him weak to even bother covering her memory up that way. _

_So the couch remained only hers. _

_Lily pulled at his shoulders and wrung her fingers throughout his messy, wet hair, inhaling the scent of the rain as it draped over her nose and face. He left kisses from the tip of her chin, down across every inch of her stomach and chest, and finished off on both sides with the tops of her feet. His fingers ignited a spark in her at every new pore they touched, and when he came back up to rest between her legs wrapped around his back, he knew in the back of his mind there was no way he could ever need anything more than he needed her._

_He didn't even bother taking off his boxers or her bra, and instead gave into every glorified urge to screw her mad on that couch and on that night. He pulled his swollen, hungry cock out and let it rest on her lower stomach as the very tips of his fingers teased the aching bud at her wet center. He watched in the darkness as her eyes shifted back and forth within her head every time he came closer to ripping through her with fingers or otherwise and it made him feel better than ever. _

"_I lied. I can't fuck you like some stranger in a bar." He whispered above her as she cleared her mind of his ministrations enough to catch his eyes high overhead. "I know you too well. You have to let me do this for real and not pretend it's something else."_

_She just stared at him as she felt him slide the tender head of his shaft along and through her soaked folds. _

"_I'm Jeff…and you're Lily. And that's the way it's always gonna be--" He cut himself off with a pulsating thrust inside of her body, as they slid against the leather together, both moaning out. _

_Lily's fingertips held his shoulders with pleads of agony, not having ever expected the afternoon to come to this at all. Her head reeled, her heart ached, and only in good, honest ways. When she felt Jeff's mouth cover the hot and clammy skin between her breasts and across her chest, she shivered, knowing just how spot on his promise had been at Quincy Market. He was going to ravish her until she forgave him, and then he was going to ravish her until she took him back. _

_Her inner thoughts had veiled all that was truly going on, and in a sweet flash, she felt a bursting jolt inside of her as Jeff pounded into her body even harder, grunting out whispers of this and that, each of them about her. _

"_God, Lily…" she steadied his grinding heart with a single, shaking hand over his chest as he continued to thrust deep inside of her, "…I love you…" he shifted her weight in his hands so that her hips rose higher and her legs wrapped tighter around his back, giving him wider prospects of the heat consuming him, "…I love you so much--"_

_Again, he pushed down within every bit of her he could get, never loosening or slowing in desperation as she cried out his name, over and over again. The room grew even darker, the sticky heat between them damper with each move they made together, and the music's drumming solo followed the strangled beat their hearts had tapped into. _

_Jeff felt Lily's body cinch over the sensitivity of his length as it throbbed for his last bit of attention. He drew out in ease, letting the back of his hand brush across her cheek and jaw as he straddled her high above for an added moment, and then in a final sweep, like that of any good Sox game, he delivered all of himself, thick and knowing into the rich cavern he'd grown so addicted to. _

_His eyes gripped themselves shut as he clenched his jaw and heard the heavenly cry of his name mixed with erotic screams. Lily hands on his back and arms fell limp as he released himself within her, and he counted the seconds and the waves rushing over her as his own energy subsided, allowing him to carefully drape himself across her wet skin. He could only murmur out slightly._

"_Please, don't make me stop loving you..." _

_Lily held onto him and watched the ceiling spin forever with his words; never thinking that despite the beauty of it, and despite her will to forgive him completely, that something might have been terribly forgotten in their haste._

* * *

**3:16 AM – Cactus Road Motel**

* * *

The pills weren't working. The alcohol wasn't helping. She was still wide awake, eyes watered down and staring at the cracks in the ceiling of her room. Lily was at wits end with herself and she was finally starting to understand just why it was that Jeff induced himself so rigidly with toxins.

If nothing else, it sedated the pain into very little but a pin prick or two.

'_You kissed Carter, stupid. You tried to sleep with him to get rid of Jeff. How pointless?'_

She moaned in frustration and turned over on her side, hands gripping the worn sheets, face plunged deep into her pillow, and eyes focused at the on and off flashing of the motel sign behind the yellow curtain.

'_Crying over nothing but your own foolishness, as usual. You left him. Why should you expect him to come crawling right back and confessing to the love you stomped out? Idiot.'_

Lily took a deep breath as she felt a wave of tears crashing against her bare arm and the pillow under it. She couldn't stop now; it was too good and it felt too raw and starved to pass up. So she let it run dry, everything, twenty years or more. She let her dad's death wash out, met then by her brother's death, by a pregnancy that wasn't supposed to be, and the loss of the only perfect thing she'd ever known despite its _imperfect_ argument to exist. Jeff came into her life when it was broken, he healed it, they healed each other, and then her obsession with self inflicted pain pushed him away.

He was right; she was a primal example of fine masochism.

When the flash of the red sign outside got to be too much for her senses, she flipped to her back again.

'_If this thing ever ends in survival, you should just let him go his own way. Don't follow him and don't take any of his offers. Give him a fighting chance to survive you for once.'_

She punched her fists into her sides on the mattress and growled out another fluttering waves of tears. Her lip trembled and her heart weakened the deeper the whiskey swam through her blood stream. She had walked across the street to the small all night liquor store after Carter left her for his own room. On her way back, with her twenty dollar, brown bagged Jack Daniel's bottle, she had wondered for half a second, what exactly it would feel like if she just kept walking into the desert. She wondered how long the whiskey would keep her alive out there, how long she would survive with nothing but her own thoughts.

Her conclusion though, stone death within the hour, brought her right back to the room. Lily wasn't suicidal, she just didn't know how to proceed anymore, and so she had begun to weigh her best options. It was the psychologist in her battling the still scared little girl.

'_This would be so much easier if I wasn't in love with him. I could pretend he didn't exist anymore and jump on the next plane back to Washington…or better yet, Boston. Yeah…'_

She soothed herself with the righteous thought of it, of returning to her childhood and past, of the only place that had ever given her a reason to dream and be who she was. She could go home to Chatham, bank in with the CIA on her practice in D.C, buy her dream house on the Cape, and spend the rest of her days sailing and reading books and playing guitar and…

'…_thinking about him. No thank you, I'd rather just settle this right here and n—'_

Before her thoughts completed themselves in clear meaning, she was startled in her crying and debate by a thick knock on the door of her room. Lily bolted up in bed and pulled the sheets to her, trying to squint through the curtains for a shadow of someone who might be familiar, but she saw nothing. She figured it might be Carter, but then wouldn't he announce himself? She thought it might be someone at the wrong room, a drunken party-goer maybe? Or maybe it was Tuzla, come to finish off her agony?

She slid out of the bed carefully, tiptoeing with the bed sheet around her 'much too revealing' nightgown for it to end up being a stranger. Another knock came, swifter and softer, and she stepped toward the door with her hand on the knob, contemplating her fate should it be someone who knew just who she was and what she was doing here.

Lily prayed once quietly before finally twisting the knob and pulling back the door to reveal a nightmare far beyond all of the other options she had come up with.

He stood tall and sinister looking behind his shades, trying to catch his breath in the heat of the night outside, one hand in his jeans pocket and another holding him steady against the door panel. She had to wipe away the rest of her tears with a sniffle or two just to collect the bearings that had been ultimately torn down by first the thought of him, and now the truth of him in her doorway.

"Jeff?"

He could tell she had been crying and still was.

"What are you doing here? How did you--?"

Before she could finish, he interrupted. "Me."

Lily gulped back a new wave of tears in confusion.

"What?"

"I thought about it." He replied solemnly, leaning into the room further. "And the answer is _me_."

"That's great, but what are you talking about? And how in the hell did you get here on your own?"

He waved his hands about to ignore the question and stepped in toward her voice, her breath, her scent.

"At the hotel earlier, you asked me who was supposed to protect you, and who was supposed to worry about you."

She was silent as he came nearer to her with a limp, consuming her with his rich nightly scent.

"Well I knew what to say but I didn't. I had to take some time and think about it, and I was right all along. The answer is _me_, I'm the one who's supposed to be protecting you and caring for you."

He didn't quite touch her, but his body heat was all over her like fingertips brushing scared skin. Sands rambled on and on as she felt herself growing dizzy with words she'd waited so long to hear.

"I'm a moron, first class and fucked to a pulp with the insensitivity of my job, at least the one I used to have. I don't have the ease of _'expressing myself'_ like you do." His hands made exaggerated quotes inches from her face and she tried not to stifle a laugh past all of the seriousness of tears. "You're a doctor, you study this shit for a living. I kill people. Sort of the opposite there, sweets…"

"Opposites attract."

He grinned a little at her simple point and moved further inside, hearing Lily shut the door behind him. He was in; she was letting him in to stay a while. That was a good sign.

"I think we're more like a battery to tell you the truth."

And she was lost again, but ready to give him a chance. Lily held his arm and helped him to sit down on the closer of the two beds in the room, then sat down next to him. He said thanks, which in too many ways broke her heart, and then kept explaining himself.

"Look you're the positive side, _obviously_, and I'm without a doubt the negative side. And just like in a battery, when the negative side transfers all the crazy little electrons over to the positive side and wears it out too fast, I keep laying all my shit on you and I think I'm wearing you out."

His point was good, but she knew there was more to it than just that. Lily was _asking_ for his burdens.

"But I'm the person who's supposed to be helping you with all that bad stuff. It's my job."

"Not to the point of killing you, though."

"Maybe not…"

She watched as he moved his hand from the mattress between them to search out and slide against her bared thigh from under her nightgown. He sighed deeply and turned his face low and up at her.

"There are a lot of things I should have said to you a hell of a long time ago, and I've had to think about them every day for eight years. I've replayed that day at the funeral consecutively, forever."

"Yeah, I ruined a lot of things that day," she whispered back quietly.

But he stopped her. "No. No, it wasn't your damn fault. It kills me to think you've blamed yourself all this time for that."

"It's my fault I walked away from you, Jeff."

"Yeah," his hand grew softer on her knees as he pulled her legs onto his lap, "But I'm the fucking genius who let you keep walking. I _watched_ you go. And then Christ, I did it again two years later."

"So what, you were tired of it all."

"I wasn't though. I wasn't tired of anything and I'm nowhere near worn out this time either."

"No?"

He shook his head at her as she watched the reflection of her glossy eyes in his tinted Ray Bans.

"You said you loved me."

"Yeah. I do."

"Even though I'm blind now?"

Lily twisted her brow toward him angrily, hating that he even thought that way, but understanding all the same.

"Yes. Blind, deaf and dumb I would still want you."

He laughed a little and caressed her legs. "You're determined. I _like_ that."

"Just now becoming convinced of this?"

"No. Just now ready to accept it."

"Ah."

Jeff grabbed hold of her hips and very quickly, very swiftly lifted her from the bed where she sat and onto his lap, without breaking a sweat or bone. Lily wrapped her arms and legs around him completely as he held onto her from falling to the ground off the mattress.

"You're always telling me I'm a pain in the ass."

"You are."

"I know, but how long can you really deal with that? Because I have no plans of becoming Mr. Brady."

Lily traced over his lips, smiling.

"I don't want Mr. Brady."

"So you're just attracted to the Al Bundy in me then? Or is it the Clark Griswold side you're after?

She laughed and grabbed his face, pulling his mouth toward hers.

"I don't care who you channel, I'm happy just having _you_."

He pulled her against him harder and tickled her lips with his as he spoke fast.

"And where do you want to live? Do you still want kids? House in the suburbs for the kids, that's usually how that works, isn't it? Minivan? Soccer practice and ballet classes? Get used to never seeing each other except for across the dinner table? Never have wild sex anymore? Do you really want--"

Before he could go on, she pressed her mouth onto his and kissed him roughly. He succumbed easily and let her melt him a hundred times over until they fell further down to the bed. Lily straddled him and refused to let him breathe for a second. All she could do was kiss him with everything in her.

Sands felt her tongue burn him and wanted to cry out at the sensation, at the way he'd come to the point of just letting all the goodness of such a thing filter out of him again. He was in no position to deny it anymore and especially no position to ask for less of Lily. With a soft nudge underneath her, he grabbed her waist and turned them over until he was planted firmly between her thighs and in control of the kisses.

He softened the movements like she didn't know he was capable of, leaving a fiery trail from the corner of her mouth right down into the valley of her breasts. And then he stopped to come back to her mouth, not kissing, but trying to form words.

"Okay listen to me…"

"Listening," she whispered with a smile.

"Cause' God help me, my heart is on the line here again. Right next to yours." He took a deep breath and felt around until he found her cheeks and held them softly in his hands, brushing through her hair. "If I knew what I was doing, I would have done it a long time ago, hell I'd be doing it better right now…but this is what you're getting."

"Okay."

Lily leaned up on her elbows under him.

"I could be the best goddamn poet you've ever seen, if I really wanted to waste time. Silver fucking words strung out of my mouth for you, baby."

She couldn't help but to laugh at the difficulty he was having just breathing, knowing this was his way.

"My words aren't going to be magic, Lil, but they're gonna cut straight to the truth of this thing."

He sat up and pulled her with him. Lily sat on the edge of the bed again as she watched him slide off and feel his way down to the floor in front of her, both hands on her legs, his face turned up. She didn't know what the hell to think, but just told herself that breathing was good, even if his inability to manage it was causing her the same stress.

"Jesus, I haven't had to grovel in front of you in a long time…"

She laughed away the nervousness and ran her fingers through his hair.

"Here it is. I want this, all of this. You and the commitment and the trust and the house, the kids, the golden retriever, the _whatever_…" he threw his hands about as she giggled back tears, "…I can't not be greedy about it. That's how I lost it all the first time."

"Then by all means, be greedy Jeff."

"Oh I will be. I'm taking all of you, Lily Hanson. I'm chaining you to me and swallowing the only key. I gotta have you right here, right next to me or I'll lose my fucking mind."

"I'm _here_." She stroked his cheek as he rested his chin onto her knee.

"How long will you stay with me? Until the odds are upped with some other guy?"

"No. Why would you even say that?"

"Hey, I'm just weighing the possibilities of my getting screwed over here."

She sighed in her own frustration, "Do you really think I would do that? Honestly…"

"Fine. Forget it, doesn't matter. I need you too bad to let it matter."

"I thought you said you didn't need anyone."

"So I lied. I'm a hypocrite."

Lily smiled and let him collect himself.

"I've lied about a lot of things. About you getting on the plane, and about you getting involved in the case, and about caring. I do care. I care so much that it makes me sick to my stomach every time I hear anything remotely resembling the sound of a gun or a scream, anywhere. I have to know you're safe, that's why I'm here now. _Well_…part of the reason."

"And what's the other part?"

He smiled a little, coughed a little more, and then sucked in enough air to breathe out the words.

"You're the _sweet_ to my _mean_, Lily. You're the good to my disgusting, the brave to my weak…the heart to my burning hell. You're everything I have to have anymore. I don't care about the job or the kill. I have to be right here, all the time, kissing you and holding you and telling you that you've been so wrong for the last 20 hours."

She bit her lip in confusion, sobbed and then he finished.

"Don't wait around for an otherwise, honey. There isn't an _otherwise_ here."

"What do you--?"

Like a lightning bolt, he cut through her, "I love you."

She had to shut her eyes to hold back the welling ducts of all that had been hidden from him.

"Three words…and I'll say them as much as you want me to now. I'm not chicken shit anymore. Tell me and I'll yell it out."

Lily laughed and cried and choked herself into a fit as she watched him throw his hands about and scream.

"I love you, Lily…I love you…_I love you_…I love you so fucking much…"

She reached out and pulled on his shirt until he fell on top of her on the bed again, both of them laughing, Lily crying like crazy, and Sands brushing away every tear he heard rolling off her cheeks.

"I'm ready to come back home. _You've_ always been my home, Lily. And baby, I'm in…"

"You are, _really_?"

"Swear to God. This is it now."

She breathed past all the tears and let him kiss her quick, softly, purely.

"I've missed you. I've missed all the screaming and fighting and cursing and crazy kissing in the middle of the rain…" he kissed her harder and lingered before concluding in a whisper, "…I miss being so in love with you that I go insane from it, instead of losing my mind other ways. I miss the roller coaster you strap me into and throw me off of…"

Lily couldn't stop laughing or letting him kiss her between words and makeshift syllables.

"That's how I loved you, like a goddamn maniac. You remember that?"

"I remember that."

"Good. 'Cause we're breaking the curse and rounding home this time, kid."

Lily reached for the buckle of his belt and tugged it off.

"I'm _ready_…"

He planted wild, wet kisses all along her jaw as he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and broke lips from skin to speak.

"There's one more thing."

Lily paused to catch the sight of his fist moving up close to her face and when he turned it over to reveal what lay beneath the knuckles and harshness, she swore she felt her heart jump through her mouth.

"We're in Vegas and the cab driver assured me that there's a chapel around this town _somewhere_…"

She couldn't contain herself and sat up halfway under his arms, just staring at the velvet box in his hands and trying to let the laughter come at his words.

"I mean _technically_, we've been engaged for eight years now. Seems long enough to me, what do you think?"

He heard nothing in response except a tiny gasp for air somewhere in the silence that made him smile.

"You can't be serious."

"Well this is only the second one of these I've given out. And you, _sweet thing_," he pinched her hip where he held onto her and she giggled out a little through the anxious tears, "Seem to be the only one collecting them…"

"You really want to marry me? Now? _Here_?"

"Yeah, tonight." He kissed her nose where he felt it near his lips. "I'm tired of waiting around for the sky to fall and kill me. I know it will eventually, but right now, I want to do something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've gotta know you're mine, kid."

Lily sighed and Sands only grew more nervous over her inability to reply.

"At least open the thing and assure me it's as nice as the guy swindled me for."

She laughed and took the small box from him, lifting it open to produce what couldn't have been a more simplistically beautiful diamond. It was twice as nice of a stone as the one before it, but no more meaningful than the other had always been for that matter.

"Well?"

"It's _perfect_."

He nodded and very quietly, with his face turned down low, whispered, "Try it on."

"Jeff."

"Come on. Let's get hitched already."

"It's permanent you know."

"Uh yeah, Hanson," he laughed, reaching out to take her chin in his hand, "That's sort of why I'm here."

Lily wanted time to think about it again; months maybe, years, not minutes between kisses and laughter. She wanted to know that he wasn't just forcing himself to do this, or to take her back, or to place claim on her for the sole purpose of keeping her from the other men in the world.

She placed the ring on her finger and watched it dazzle in the faint light of the hotel room glow for a moment, before she felt lips like silk mesh with the warm skin of her cheek and entrap her, consume her beyond comprehension. And because she was out of her head, drifting from her body with the very touch of him, so genuine, so knowing and trusting and loving and _real_, she could only find room to ask one thing.

"Do I have to wear white?"

He laughed darkly against her cheek and moved his mouth down to where he could feel her hot breath sliding from between her lips. There, at the one place he felt most comfortable and welcome in the whole black world around him, he murmured a fair response.

"All your secrets are safe with me if you do, babe."


	31. Nothing But Mine

**NOTHING BUT MINE**

**

* * *

**

_**Little Church of the West**_** Wedding Chapel – 4:10 am**

* * *

_The bride wore…Levi's and a Rolling Stones t-shirt…_Lily shook her head at herself in the mirror of the chapel bathroom, pulling her tangle of messy curls into a decent ponytail, _Jesus_, _if my mother could see me now, _she thought with a soft laugh that was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Lily?"

It was Jeff, the other half to this nonsensical charade, the ringleader in fact.

"You okay?"

She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the bathroom, deliberating and debating with herself in the mirror, but it must have been long enough to make a CIA agent nervous. She rolled on some lip gloss from her purse and then turned for the door again, pulling it open just as his head moved up from the wall beside it.

"How cold are those feet of yours?"

His smile was soft and his hand softer when he reached out for hers.

"They aren't," she gestured quietly, tucking her hand in his as she led him back toward the outside ceremony platform, where lights twinkled in the desert trees and candles built a path to the white gazebo in the dark. They were the only ones at the chapel this time of night, or rather early Sunday morning, at the end of January.

Lily slowed and stood near the altar where she imagined an ordained Elvis might be standing any minute, but her hand never left Sands'. He hovered beside her, feeling the heat of the desert and twinkling lights on his face.

"_Twelve years_…" he sighed and she looked up at him, seeing her reflection in his glasses.

"Since what? You were free of me, completely?"

He shook his head with a smirk and squeezed her hand tighter.

"No, smartass. Twelve years I've been thinking about this night."

"I don't buy it."

"Oh no?" He pursed his lips towards her. "What will it take to make you believe me?"

"Twelve more years of exactly _who_ you've been tonight," she whispered back with a quick kiss on his cheek, "I just missed _you_, that's all."

"I can do that. I will," he finished before the loud voice of a thankfully, normal looking minister broke their trance.

"Welcome, welcome. Looks like you two want to get married, tonight."

Lily smiled at the round, lapel and cowboy hat laden man and she heard Jeff snicker, just thinking about it, as he held her hand without restraint.

"Now don't go telling me ya just decided to marry each other off the street or something. I don't think I could take another wasted set of vows in this here place."

"No sir," Lily replied.

And Sands added, "This is a long time coming."

"How long?"

"Well…" Sands chuckled a little, "…June of 96' was the first date we set."

The minister laughed wildly which made Lily giggle too.

"So ya'll are finally making it to the altar then, that's good. _Real_ good to hear."

"Tell me about it," Sands remarked dryly. To which Lily nudged him with a gasp.

"Ignore him, he thinks he's funny."

"I am funny. That's the only reason you're marrying me isn't it?"

The minister, who said his name was Randy, was nothing short of humored to death by the two of them; livened by them even.

The ceremony started quickly thereafter, drifting by casually in the crisp desert night air, and eventually staggered to a romantic, teary-eyed (on Lily's end) close. Sands' thought he could have easily shed a tear or two, something he'd never tell her or anyone if he actually _could_, but he couldn't ignore the thought for himself. It was all too ridiculously perfect. His plan had worked somehow. He'd left the hotel room and blindly found a cab driver who assisted him in getting to a 24 hour jeweler in the city, then in getting to the motel to find Lily.

And she'd said yes, after reassurance of course.

"_I Lily, take you Sheldon, to be my husband, my best friend, my lover, and my other half from this day forward. I will cherish our union and love you more with each passing day. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, care for you and protect you…" _

He felt his heart sink when she said those words. He'd never felt it sink like that before.

"And for the groom's vows."

Sands gulped back laughter not fear, "I Sheldon, take you, _Sweet Cheeks_…"

Lily kicked him in the shin with her sneaker as the minister went on cackling under his breath as Sands' repeated the words he spoke so eloquently.

"_Fine_…I Jeff, take you, Lily, _to be my best friend, my lover and my wife. I will be yours in times of plenty and in times of need, in times of sickness and in times of health, in times of joy and in times of sadness, in times of failure and in times of victory. I promise to cherish and respect you, to care and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and to faithfully stay with you, for the rest of my life."_

"Thank you," she whispered with a giggle.

The ceremony continued, thoroughly and respectfully so, until there were two tiny bands on each of their fingers and commitment spoken deeply between them. Then, when neither of them truly expected it all to be happening or true or anything but an insane game, the minister made it all reality.

"And now, by the powers vested in me by the great state of Nevada, I present to the world for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Sands…"

There was a pause in the universe, a laugh here, a tear there as Jeff squeezed her hands tight and Lily felt every muscle in his palm twitch with relief and excitement and anxiety all at once.

"…Mr. Sands, you may now kiss your _Sweet Cheeks_…"

Lily's crying was washed away instantly as she felt Jeff's laughing arms swallow her whole and lift her completely off the gravel desert ground and up into the late night sky. His mouth found hers like no task at all, his hand holding the nape of her neck hostage as he pinned her to him, tasting the sweetness of matrimony, of her finally being his forever, right there on her lips. He could taste a tiny cottage with blue shudders and a white picket fence on Chatham Bay, he could taste satisfying passion and eternal devotion and loyalty and promises on her mouth, all the things that once scared him and now only pricked the skin of his immune exterior for her.

Lily was his life, she always had been. She was his only home, ever. And he had no problem at all, getting that, and so much more, back in his arms for good.

"Love you, Sparky," she hummed against his warm lips.

"Love you, _Mrs. Sparky_."

* * *

**4 am Vegas wedding chapel service…$**_475_

**All-night, Nevada state marriage license and certificate notary…**_$62.50_

**Case of cold Budweiser and drive-thru tacos…**_$40.15_

**Getting lost in the middle of the desert outskirts of Las Vegas, before sunrise, in an armored CIA vehicle with your hour-long spouse and lifelong best friend…**_can't buy that stuff._

* * *

"Didn't I say we should get a map at the gas station? I really think I did."

Lily ground the truck through the hapless dust of blue and purple tint, running the SUV nearly into hell as she shifted it into park on the pathless desert plain. Jeff just laughed at her, finished his cigarette and tossed it out of the passenger's side window before opening the door.

"Women and _maps_. Women and _plans_…"

She hopped out of the truck and met him at the other side, trying to figure out what in the hell side of Vegas they were lost on. The lights were out of sight, but they were still within range of the lesser radio stations. Jeff reached out for where he heard her breathing and held her cheek.

"If life were all about plans you wouldn't be married to _me_ right now."

He was right, but she still rolled her eyes.

"Married to a guy who makes me crazy."

"That's what it's all about."

She liked the way his mind worked, but before she could kiss him, he turned back inside of the car door and reached for the Navajo blanket they had bought off a man at the gas station.

"Now come along and find a good spot for me to take your virgin seed on, _darling_."

Lily tucked her arm in his, laughed and led the way to the further open plain before the mountains, where grass met rocks and rocks met potential snakes and potential snakes met the fun of it all.

"I hear the best sex you can have is on your wedding night."

"Well its morning now, _honey_," Lily teased him as she settled on a good place in the open grasses.

"Morning, night, makes no difference to me. Just let me have you already."

He threw the blanket down in what must have been a half-ass manner by her laughter, and then immediately pulled her against his pounding chest. Sands let his hands roam up her beaten old t-shirt, seeking out the warmth her skin was radiating with, and when he touched it for the first time in the longest two hours of his life, he fell to his knees with her in utter weakness.

Lily dropped the case of beer and then fell on the softness of the thick blanket, watching as he hovered over her body, tugging at whatever cotton and denim, buttons, zippers and hooks he could locate blindly. And when she was left in nothing but red and black lace frivolities, and he in nothing more than his tightened boxers and boots, he sighed heavily and shocked her with his spoken need. (Well, sort of)

"I need a beer first. I'm running on empty, baby."

She just shook her head and leaned on her elbows as he hunted on hands and knees for the box.

"Grab me one too. If you ever find them…"

Sands finally grasped the edge of the case in the dusty gravel and pulled it open.

"Don't mock your blind husband."

"Or what?"

He said nothing. Instead he only smirked wickedly as he crawled back to her with two beers. Sands found her lingerie clad skin again, and with the beer he'd brought for her, he found even more delight in rolling it down where he felt her knees, cooling the opposing temperature of her boiling flesh. Lily gasped out with laughter, not expecting the immediate and freezing sensation as the bottle of beer curled down her leg, thigh, up the hem of her panties, across her stomach and right to her breasts, where he left it settled for her to take.

"Just drink up, so I can do all kinds of illegal things to you before the coyotes find us."

Lily's lips puckered over the rim of the bottle, sucking down the bitter alcohol like it was candy. In fact, she finished hers before him, to which he just scoffed and threw her back down to the blanket with rabid force.

"Let's see those illegal things then, _Agent_."

"Well I can't very well radicalize our marriage bed with _these_ in the way," he found a tiny hole through the lace of her thong and tugged until it completely tore in half and flew out into the desert overhead.

"Good job," she quipped sarcastically. "Now I have to ride back to town commando."

"Oh don't even pretend like you don't enjoy a nice _cross breeze_ or two down there."

He had her, but she could hardly keep from hiding the fact with giggling sighs.

"That's beside the point."

Sands chuckled and leaned down to plant the wildest French kiss on the lobe of her ear, while his fingers danced through the soft curls of her humid center.

"God you must be my wife, to make a claim like that."

Lily's hand moved down to cover his and press it closer to her soaked, aching folds as he blew on the wetness he had left behind on her ear. She moaned and wound his fingers with hers until she could feel them entering through her with a gentle, swooning ease.

"Oh, so that's where they're supposed to go? Man, all this time I had it wrong…"

"Stop teasing me or I'll show _you_…ah," she gasped out as his index and middle finger curled lightly within in, "…or I'll show you where else you can stick them."

"Where's that baby?" He whispered lovingly and yet crudely against her neck as he jammed his fingers further inside, rougher, the way he knew she liked it when she was drinking beer from a bottle.

Red wine Lily liked everything rich and slow, tequila Lily, whenever he could remember seeing her, liked things quick and dirty, while whiskey Lily would always admit to enjoying sex best when she was in costume or when the Red Sox lost or when life was too depressing to do anything but screw the pain away.

He knew them all. But he had to admit, Lily with a cold beer in her hand and her heart on her sleeve, was his favorite. This was when she was most sarcastic, most prone to test his furthest limits and her own, and when she liked for everything to be raw and rough and unexpected. Budweiser, among others, could make her say and do things that most women would be timid to admit they might enjoy. And ironically, it was when she was most childlike too.

_Sublime choice of substance abuse for a wedding to Lily Hanson, _he chuckled in his head as his scissoring, commanding fingers delved in and out of her slick chasm, her hips rolling down onto him in consummation of it all, _my little South New England hops, girl._

"More Jeff, I want it _harder_…"

_Harder the lady says, harder she gets. _He forced a third finger, somehow so tightly that it drove his stiff cock mad with jealousy, down into her lower cavern, where the unseen vibrancy emanated from her insides right to the whimper in her voice.

"Harder, please. _Faster_…go faster!"

All he could let himself do was hover over her, pumping through and through her body with the sticky heat of his hand, and shaking his head with a manic grin. The sound of her climaxing had never been healthier, sweeter, and more superior to now; now, with a ring on her finger and a promise lain out. Her moaning filled his every functioning sense remaining and left him desperate for the tightness, the wetness he felt soaking his fingers, to drench and own his angry manhood.

As she fell down from the sky and hit the ground with his fingers cradling her final rushing waves of ecstasy and arching hips, Sands aimlessly let his free hand wander under the cotton of his boxers and hunt out the pleading beast of himself, strangling it tightly to hold control.

"_God_, you are so damn…" Lily breathed and he rubbed his cock smoother for another extended moment, "…_so, so_ damn good at that."

He smiled when she laughed at her own comment and sat up to wrap her arms around his neck.

"No," he corrected as he released his hand from his boxers and replaced it on her thigh beside him, while his fingers dripping from her cream were sucked at one by one, "_You_ are so damn good at that. I'm merely an _ear_-witness to the magic."

Lily rubbed his sweating chest and stroked until she could feel the soft hairs sprouting from the waistband of his boxers.

"It's my turn to watch you lose _your _mind then, lover boy."

Her hand moved inside of the cotton and firmly took hold of his cock, more than pleased with the way he twitched with excitement at her touch. It was nice to see him this way, at ease with everything, even with what she could do to him for a change. _My husband, _she thought to herself as she stroked him from out of the boxers and pushed him to lie back on the blanket instead, _Sheldon Jeffery Sands. Sex God and cheap romancer extraordinaire. And Lord, help me, I love him to death and you can't make me deny it. No more._

She settled comfortably between his legs and eased his boxers away to reveal all of him, what she now rightfully owned. Sands' heady, anxious cock bounced high from the fabric and he gritted his teeth when Lily stroked him, from tip to root, pinching tight.

"Fuck. That feels good baby."

"How about this…?"

Her face tumbled down quick to lick away the bitter drip of what he'd already begun to release to her. Sands' hands gripped the blanket when he couldn't find her, and he grunted peaceably at the way her tongue fit so perfectly into the niche of his cock's head, swirling and tasting everything he wanted to give her.

"That's _better_…" he laughed darkly as he felt her free hand stroke his clammy stomach.

Lily giggled before she finally slipped her lips over the silk head of him, taking the upstanding length as deep as could satisfy her hunger for him. She let her lower teeth grind against the underside of his shaft, while her tongue soothed the aftermath of it. He tossed his head from side to side, clenched his jaw, grunted, nearly whimpered for her, and it all made her movements faster, more determined and lustful.

"That's it, _God_…Lil, that's it sugar…"

His voice was resounding, sexy and punishable.

"Take it, swallow me fucking whole!"

She refused to do that, and with a laugh and one last deep plunge of her mouth upon him, she released the startled, achy flesh and slid to straddle his body instead. He was breathless, upset and sweating under her.

"Come on, are you kidding me….?"

"Relax. I've got something else for you to have."

Her hand reached down where their middles met with soft curls and warm moisture, and she brushed the tip of his frustrated cock against her opening.

"Oh, well I _love_ your something else."

"I thought you might," with a giggle and without much difficulty except for the occasional moan or groan, she pressed him slowly within her, pushing his six healthy, ready inches as deep as she could get them.

She mewed like an innocent kitten lost in the desert and it made his mind rush with the unbearable heat and need to flush himself of what had been built up for too long already. Her body fit around his like a glove, a really taut, really wet, utterly _flawless_ glove. No woman, no cunt had been sweeter or more dangerous or more obviously designed for him to fill.

He was sure of it.

"Yeah, baby," he sighed and reached out to grasp her hips as she rode him easily. "You're it."

Lily laughed down at him in ecstasy and dug her nails into his chest, trying to hold on to everything and nothing.

"I'm what, Jeffery?"

"You're…" his mouth gaped as her hips moved to bend and contract around his cock, "…sweet Jesus, heaven and _fucking earth_…" the slide of her wet form against his, the way her fingers cinched his skin like a fierce desert animal, and the sensation of his length stroking all of her inner most walls and muscles made the ground shake under the blanket.

He swore it.

Lily threw her head back, her mess of tangled brown curls dancing against the burn and droplets of sweat on the nape of her neck and shoulders. His coaching voice from underneath of her, although she couldn't bear to see the urgent, gaping look on his face, was all she needed to hear.

"Lily, Holy God…fuck me, _yes_…come on honey, _harder_…more, more Lily!"

She did everything he requested of and more, sliding, screwing, grinding and crying out into the middle of nowhere at all. Her thighs grew weak with the movement, his hands on her hips tightened and that's when she felt the crest of the wave, the tumbling of her feet over her head off a cliff, and she began falling fast.

No words would come of her lips, only desert howls and short yelps for his hard flesh rocking against the most sensitive of spots, rubbing at the invisible walls of pulsing blood and desire deep within her. And as her heat rose fifty degrees instantly, so did his. Sands' groaned and half sat up to attempt control over himself a little longer, but it didn't seem to matter. She was too good at bringing him to the edge. There was no stopping it.

He held her close to him, her soft breasts melting into his chest like butter and her hips doing the same around his waist as she let go of what little she had left. Her arms were loosely clinging to his neck as he pounded into her from a different angle and took the black veil of his view away with it. He could see colors suddenly, like fizzling light in a blank field. His shaft tingled where it was hidden within her and ever so lovingly, gave way to what was then hiding within it.

Sands' bit his lower lip as the release consumed Lily and her head fell to his shoulder. He ran his hands up and down her spine, gripping at certain fleshy areas on her hips and waist, trying to gain any bit of focus he could, but there was none.

_Fine, fuck it; _he bargained silently, _I'll fall this time without a fight._

And so he did, right back down to the dusty blanket with Lily's body stretched out across his, shielding him from the brutish reality that he'd become something and someone else so suddenly, and at such ease. He hadn't been the ardent, tumultuous lover type in eight years; and _ironically_ so, perhaps.

He stroked through her hair where it fell from the top of her head to his right cheek and shoulder. Under his chin she rested, cuddled her face and kissed him over and over, trying to regain a clear view of the ground under them and the purple sky above.

"Jeff?"

His chest rose with deep breathing and Lily's body did with it.

"Hm?" He asked as he threw half the blanket over to cover them together.

"Sing to me."

"Sing what?"

She pressed her face down into his chest and left imprints, ownership, with her lips.

"I don't know, just pick something. Something _good_."

He laughed under her, calling into question all the times she'd ever given that same answer.

"Something good she says, ladies and gentleman. What should we give her?"

After deliberating for a short while, he finally tugged a faint hum out of thin air. Lily knew what it was without a second thought and she drifted closer to sleep with every _'hmm hmm hm hm…'_ that came from between his lips. He softly kissed the top of her head and rubbed her shoulder when he began to sing in a whisper.

'_Lay lady lay…lay across my big brass bed…'_

She loved this song, probably too much. But then again, he knew that too.

'_Stay lady stay; stay with your man a while…till the break of day, let me see you make him smile…'_

Lily turned her face just enough to see with her last bit of energy, that he already was.

"I will," she quietly mumbled before closing her eyes.

NOTHING BUT MINE

* * *


	32. Gunpowder Shower

**GUNPOWDER SHOWER**

**January 24****th**** - 9:40 AM**

* * *

Somewhere a clock was ticking. Somewhere a phone was ringing. But he couldn't stop either in his head. The ticking met the ringing and they both met the heat that burned even more gaping holes in his body. Eventually, he just forced himself to wake up, however that seemed to be anymore without eyes to open, and hunted for the phone that was half buried in dust in the pocket of his jeans nearby.

Lily stirred against him as he moved around, but she remained mostly content as he answered the call and lay back down.

"Yeah, what?"

The voice of reason, anger and disgust hit him like he knew it soon enough would.

"_Do I even want to know where the fuck you're lost at?"_

"You assume too much for your own damn good, you know that?"

"_It's my job, you moron. You're blind."_

"Right, don't forget to remind me of that every chance you get."

He heard Shane sigh and then soften her tone.

"_Where are you? Are you with Lily?"_

"Why?"

"_Jeff."_

With a grumble, he lightly rolled the base of his palm where he felt Lily's shoulder.

"Yeah. With Lily. In the middle of…"

"Nowhere," he heard a tired whisper under his chin when he felt a kiss.

"Yeah, nowhere."

Shane didn't sound pleased but it wasn't something new to him.

"_Any idea when you all might decide to come back to __**somewhere**__…? We still have a drug lord on the loose."_

Sands felt Lily slide away from him and sit up. It sounded as if she were getting dressed.

"Tell her we're heading back now," she murmured as she pulled on her t-shirt.

"We're heading back now."

"_I need you at the hotel, Jeff. Andy has a full tape of the guys from last night. You've got to decipher these voices."_

"Okay, alright."

His jeans and shirt landed on his chest as he worked to get them on as Lily stumbled between him and the truck with the leftover beer.

"We're on our way."

With a satisfied snap of the phone, he shoved it into the pocket of his dirtied jeans again and stood up to shake out the blanket, fold it, and follow the sound of Lily's boots on the rocks to get back to the truck. They both got in and she started the engine, rubbing her eyes with a yawn.

"I'll drive you back to the hotel to meet Shane."

"No."

Lily sat frozen as he reached over and felt for her cheek to hold it in the palm of his hand.

"Shane can wait."

"But she needs your help."

He wished he could roll a pair of eyes, "She didn't need it when she tried to haul ass out of D.C without me. So she can wait. I'm not ready to leave you yet."

Lily smiled as he leaned closer toward her seat, the heat from his mouth covering her all the more when his full lips came within mere inches of hers. She didn't close her eyes, she let them stay fixed widely as she watched him kiss her delicately, like the very first time he ever did. His mouth was searing and still gentle, like the brush of a feather on fire. And surprisingly, she never once felt his tongue beg entrance. Something about his kiss was refreshed and childlike, as if he were lost and ready to admit her eyes were his own.

He pulled away and she felt her heart strings being tugged at the same rate.

"I can't stop thinking about how much I love you. I can't stop thinking how you're all mine finally."

She said nothing, only leaned back into her seat as he did, holding her hand tight.

"Let's go back to the motel. I want to be with you all day."

"What about Tuz--"

"I don't care." He cut her off directly as she gasped into silence. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"You can't mean that. All these years you've wanted to catch him…"

As he sighed, he muttered, "Twelve years."

"What?"

"I said _twelve years_. You asked for twelve more of what you had last night. It starts today. Screw em', screw Tuzla, I'm about you now. Twelve years, twenty years, fifty, this is what matters to me."

Lily didn't know what to say, so she just pulled back down the dirt path to the road, and set off to find her way back to the city outskirts again. There was silence from the both of them, as each one thought about the other for miles and let _Hotel California_ and _Margaritaville _fill in the spaces leftover. She could hear him hum and he could hear her tap her fingers on the wheel as she slid down Cactus Road all of a half an hour later, but neither one said anything, still.

She pulled into the motel parking lot and nearly ran over a young guy in the process. With his hands in his pockets and a baseball cap hiding his face, she couldn't make out how young he was, but he seemed to be aimlessly wandering the area. After he crossed in front of the truck, she sped up toward the room and parked. Standing at the door of her room though, smoking a cigarette and eyeing them suspiciously, was Carter.

She turned off the truck and jumped out first, still anxious about what had happened between them the night before. She hoped he wouldn't say anything to Jeff, but she didn't know for sure.

"Morning Danny."

He winked at her and crushed the smoke butt under his boot toe with a grin.

"Harvard. What are you doing driving an armored vehicle around town?"

She turned the key into the door half behind him as she heard Jeff stumbling close.

"I was hungry."

"A huh," he teased, having already noticed the gold band shining on her finger in the sunlight. "And you didn't bring me anything?"

"She wasn't hungry for breakfast tacos, genius," Sands shot back as he reached the door.

Lily's face turned red when Jeff caught her hand in his, with his freakish sense of direction and sound.

"Alright, alright I can take a hint. As you were…"

Carter held his hands up in defense with a wide smile, stepping back as Sands pulled on Lily's arm. Once inside the room safely, they shut and locked the door.

"Think you could be a little more of an asshole to him?"

He turned back to her voice, where she was standing near his side.

"He wants to fuck you. I can tell by the way he breathes."

'_Don't say anything, Lily. Keep your mouth shut'_ she thought desperately.

"So what? You're not jealous are you?"

Her teasing instantly rattled him and he stalked blindly upon her, making her feet move backwards, leading a path toward the tiny bathroom of the room.

"Wife." He pointed at her.

Then he pointed to himself, "Husband."

Lily giggled a little and grasped his t-shirt, pulling him along until her bottom hit the bathroom counter and he growled, "I already won."

Sands lifted her onto the counter and fell between her legs, squeezing the tight denim of her thighs as she worked with the button on his jeans. She pulled his shirt off, he did hers the same, and somewhere in amid the madness of tearing off clothes again, Lily turned the faucet of the shower on. He could taste the steam, smell it, feel it covering the both of them as the moisture beaded and rolled down where their skin touched in between.

He kicked off his boots as he trampled in the direction Lily was leading him by nothing more than the waistband of his boxers.

"What do you say we get cleaned up?"

He chuckled darkly and let her pull his boxers away as she pulled him through the shower curtains.

"Scrub a dub _dub, _baby…"

Lily giggled and threw him against the tiled wall, reaching for a nearby box of motel soap. She lathered it under the heat of the water and replaced it to the dish below, while her hands hit the burning and taut ripples of his stomach, rubbing smoothly.

"Feel good?"

She watched through the steam, as his bottom lip became trapped in his teeth. She knew she had him. Lily let her fingers and palms trace over the curve of his waist, down over his hips and around until they moved through his legs, gripping his inner thighs as he grunted out overhead in the rushing water.

"Sounds like a yes."

"Well, it's a _hell_ yes."

"Glad to hear it," she whispered, moving her mouth down to kiss the soft skin just above the crop of tiny black curls on his lower stomach. Her tongue wove inside of his navel and he laughed out, unnerved completely, and pulled her up and against the next closest wall in the shower.

"You would make one hell of an interrogation specialist for the agency, darlin'."

"Would I?"

He nodded and bit at her lower lip, when he had found it. "Terrorists wouldn't stand a chance lying to you."

She smiled, grasped at his hair and let him lift her body higher against the wall. And no sooner had the water begun to wash away the soap, no sooner had Sands growing desire met the heat and resolution of hers with a single inching thrust, than everything was put on hold with a pounding on the door of the room.

Both of their heads turned to the noise, stopping their movements.

"Carter?"

He shook his head at her soft questioning and let her feet hit the floor of the shower again.

"Jeff, who do you think--" she was quieted by his wet hand over her mouth. Then he found the dial of the shower and turned it off.

Lily tried to voice a mumbling concern under his hand, but he didn't listen to her. He only managed to help get her out of the shower, wrapped in a towel that took him forever to locate on the counter, and to keep her silenced against the angry pounding and shouting from outside of the room.

"We know you're in there, sweet thing! Open the door!"

"Get dressed," he finally commanded, harshly, but protectively.

She flew from his arms and rushed to her bag on the bed, pulling out a clean pair of jeans and a plain black tee. Lily got dressed, still dripping wet, faster than she ever had, and only saw flashes of Jeff from between her own movements and the sound of kicking boot heels and guns on the door. When she threw her wet hair into a tie out of her face and felt his arm wrap around her waist, tugging her toward the door only seconds later, she also saw a gun in his free hand.

And then, she saw him hold it out towards her.

"You have to do it."

"Jeff…"

"Lily, you have to."

He shoved it at her until she took hold of it, wearily. Somehow he was able to follow the perfectly common floor plan of the small motel room until they were standing together in the corner near the yellow curtains. Sands leaned against the wall, holding Lily against him tight with his hands over hers on the gun.

"Can you see anyone?"

His voice was anxious sounding, serious and silent, and it made Lily focus hard on the shadows of movement through the window of the room. There were two men, possibly three, darting from one end to the other, trying to see inside at her, at _them_, but failing from their hiding place in the corner.

"Two men."

"Shit, okay…"

"No wait." She interrupted him, eyeing the curtains view more carefully and feeling his fingers twined with hers over the trigger of the gun. "_Three_, there's three of them."

Her head rested in the crook of his shoulder and neck. Lily could feel and hear his heart beating like crazy next to her ear, she could feel his hands growing stiffer with every shout from outside by the men and every failed attempt they made to knock down the door of the room. And then, she heard the sound, recognized the scent and acknowledged the sensation of a gun from the outside, trying to shoot its way inside.

Sands held onto her tighter, moving the gun higher in the air, masking his complete ignorance of the situation with his memory of other moments in his life like this.

"Think you can hit one of them?"

Her eyes grew wide with fear. Lily had prepared for this with beer bottles and flat tires. Not moving, living, breathing targets.

"I can't…I…"

"You have to," he growled nervously. "You can do this, Lily. I'm right here. Just aim and shoot."

"Jeff."

"Lily, please. Do what I say."

She could hear the frustration in his voice, the uncertainty, and she wanted to change it. She wanted to make him proud, and prove that all the training and arguing and begging to come along had been for something.

Lily found her focus then, under his hands, under her perfect view of the black shadows of men outside.

"Aim and shoot, I know you can…" he whispered peaceably, with a hopeful sigh.

And then, when the shorter shadow moved close to the window, peeing inside, she pinched down on the trigger that housed his thumb and hers together, and released the fierceness of smoke and fire through the window, stirring a whirlwind shatter of glass all around them.

Lily screamed with eyes shut to the world, listening as the man who she'd shot, the one she'd killed with an instant bullet to the head, fell to the ground near his comrades.

"She's got a gun! Get in there, get her!"

She knew there was more ammo in the gun, but in fear for her life, she turned and pulled at Sands, trying to somehow cover him and her at once.

"They're coming inside…Jeff…they're coming to get me…"

"No they're not."

His voice was fearless and ready for a fight, as he pulled on her hand, leading the blank way toward the opposing wall of the room, facing the doorway that was nearly falling off the hinges.

"You have to kill the other two."

"I can't!"

"Yes."

He shoved her to the wall, the way as before, his hands safe on her waist as she held the gun alone this time.

"When the door falls you have to fire the gun!"

"Jeff, I can't do it."

He heard the tears, the relentless sobbing and choking on her words. But he couldn't let it hurt him. Not yet.

"You have to do it. You _will_ do it. Just focus…" he hands were soft as they reached up, sliding down hers until they held onto hers on the gun, ready and able, soothing and reassuring, "…I'm here, like I promised. I'm right here to shoot with you, Lily."

It was the last sane thing she heard before the brass hinge on the door snapped off and flew inside of the room with the tilting door itself. Gunfire and smoke blew across the open area in front of them, Sands felt the heat of the moving bullets and desert air from outside on his face, and heard the terror of Lily's screams, which broke down and melted every one of his bones, his muscles, his strength.

There were at least two dozen bullets fired before he even realized that he'd been hit. And at least another five, before he fell down with Lily in his arms, and realized that the warm blood he felt on his bare chest wasn't the same as the blood from his leg.

It was hers.

"Lily…Lily!"

There was no answer.

He shook her underneath of him, tossed her head about in his hands, felt her chest, listening for sounds of breathing and got nothing but the silence of three fallen bodies, two of which were enemies.

"Lillian, answer me…wake up! You're fine, you're alright!"

The source of the blood was evident as it trickled through the torn hole in her shirt, where he held his palm, trying to relieve the pressure of the bleeding from her abdomen.

"Answer me…Lily _please_, baby talk to me…"

She wouldn't though, because she couldn't. And although he wanted to cry a full length ocean of tears, he couldn't either. That's what hurt the most. The fact that he wanted to, and couldn't now.

Sands fell down across her body, letting the blood gush from his leg to the carpet, unconcerned for his own well being, or loss of consciousness, or paleness as he fell into a dreamlike state. He whispered with continuous begging, hugging Lily close to him, brushing back on her hand under his nose and chin, kissing her cheeks and forehead like mad, all in a somber attempt to bring her back to him.

He didn't know if she was dead or unconscious, shot or killed completely. Nor would he know, when only minutes of agony later, he found he was losing his sense of reality as fell, drifting out of the world of awareness and into his nightmares, right where he always seemed to belong.

* * *

**Jeff's Apartment – February 28****th****, 1996**

_6:32 am_

* * *

_He had sat there, in the chair at the foot of the bed, watching her late into the night as she slept. He counted her breaths, and studied the way her chest rose and fell with such deliberate peace. He learned habitually how often and at what intervals she would toss her head in an opposite direction on the pillow, and how she would twist her legs under the covers, and how she moaned softly at whatever was going on in her dreams. _

_Outside, the thunder and lightning had rolled throughout the city most of the night, teasing his head as he sat with it in his hands, glancing up a few final times as the light came to the room. He'd gotten the call he had dreaded after Lily had fallen asleep. It was the one he had hoped wouldn't come for at least a few days, the one that was going to do serious damage. He could feel it as he got up to take a quick shower. _

_Tom was meeting him in the State House at quarter after 7, and from there they would be driving to Brooklyn. Tuzla had been spotted there overnight, boozing and hounding at a small club, only streets away from the hotel room he'd rented out. Tommy had told him not to say anything to Lily, not to even wake her up. Jeff didn't particularly like the thought, especially after what he had gone through just to get her to his place the afternoon before, but he didn't have a clue what to say if he did wake up her, so he had to go along with it. _

_He jumped out of the shower minutes later, dried, and threw on a clean pair of jeans and an old t-shirt. After he messed with his damp hair a little in the mirror, watching his eyes grow red with the need to cry and not knowing when or how, he pulled on his hooded sweater and turned out of the bathroom. _

_The second he opened the door though, he wished he hadn't. _

_He was stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of Lily, sitting on the edge of the bed facing the bathroom door, wrapped in a sheet and holding a scowl that moved mountains. He tried to take a breath and found he forgot how to._

"_You lying bastard."_

_Her eyes were as red as his were, but she didn't hesitate to cry and let them slowly soak themselves as she spoke._

"_I can't believe you were going to run out of here without saying anything."_

_Jeff stepped in to say something then and she leapt down to the wood floor to meet him, looking up into his eyes with a fierceness and determination newfound from the night before, even stronger than she had been in the café. _

"_Was it good, Jeff?"_

_He looked at her confused and sick to his stomach at what he was doing to her, "What?"_

"_The fuck I let you get off on!" She yelled up at him as she swung her arm out and hit his broad shoulder. "I hope it was!"_

"_Baby…"_

"_Don't…" she held up a finger in his face, stomping in front of him on her bare feet, tears covering her face, "Don't you dare, __**baby**__ me."_

_She held onto the sheets tighter and moved out of his face and away from his warmth to gather her clothes off the floor. _

"_Would you stop?!" _

_He begged, coming in behind her to attempt to bring her into his arms. She only flinched and pulled away as she bolted into the living room in search of her purse. _

"_Lily!" He shouted out as he followed after her, catching a short glimpse of his white sheet as she stormed out of the door of his apartment. It nearly slammed shut before he slid his hand through it and ran out behind her. "Lily…you can't go out there like that, it's freezing…STOP!"_

"_Stay away from me, Jeff. Stop following me!"_

_She ran down the hall with him on her heels, brushing the sheet along the tiled floor of the apartment building as she quickly ran down the stairs, Jeff's shouting waking up a dozen or more people before they poked their heads out of other doors. _

"_I'm not letting you go, this is crazy! It's my job!"_

_With a handful of clothes, her purse and shoes, Lily ran faster, shouting behind her as she got closer to the front doors of the building. _

"_I'm done with you and your job…"_

_He grumbled with a stomp of his boots onto the bottom step, rushing as she fell through the front glass doors in a daze, the sheet just missing the doorway as it shut behind her. He reached it and pulled hard as he ran out into the cold, completely shocked at how she could manage to stand there, in the middle of public on the coldest day in February, in nothing more than a sheet fresh with the scent of passionate lovemaking. Her hair was a tumbling, tangled mess of curls down her back, her skin glistening in the hazy, storm ridden Boston morning, and all of this a show for curious onlookers all heading to work. _

_She stood on the curb in her bare feet, jumping up and down as she held the sheet tight, begging for whatever taxi would stop for her. _

"_Taxi!"_

"_Lily!"_

_She whipped her head around, hair flying and eyes brazen up at him. "I said, leave me alone!"_

"_Not a fucking chance."_

_Her head shook, angered and tense, but not caring that crowds of people were forming on both sides of the midtown street. Her arms wove through the air as she shouted. _

"_Just get in your car and go, Jeff! Get the hell out of here and don't ever bother coming back!"_

"_I'm not leaving you like this…"_

"_As if you care." She replied silently, too broken to raise her voice at the note. She instead saved it for her cab hunt, "Taxi!"_

_Jeff came towards her and took hold of her arm gently, not meaning to cause a scene, but forgetting momentarily just who he was dealing with. "Let go of me!" She yelled, shifting away and further down into the icy gutter. "I don't ever want you to touch me again. Just leave and don't bother letting anyone inform me when you get yourself killed…"_

_He bit his lip in the cold, watching her shuffle as a yellow cab finally pulled up for her. The crowds of people were all deathly silent as Lily threw her things inside of the backseat, talking to the driver for a moment before twisting the sheet more securely at her chest and glancing back at him on the curb. She didn't say anything. She only looked him straight in the eye to see that he was unwavering, and that he had truly intended to run off without even mentioning it. He had planned to leave her asleep in his bed, dreaming of him, so that she could wake up to another empty, abandoned morning in his apartment. _

_But she didn't and he couldn't, so she shook her head quietly and moved inside of the taxi, letting it slowly pull away from him for good. _

_Jeff stood there watching until he couldn't see the yellow roof anymore down the street and it turned the corner toward her apartment's block. He thought about how he should have ignored her brother's insistence and just woke her up, made her breakfast, kissed her a million times to prove he was coming back and that he was coming back for __**real**__. She might not have been happy, but she would have at least crawled back into his bed after he had left. _

_It didn't truly register then, on that street corner in Boston, but years later it would come to his mind in silence, while he made love to a stranger from a bar, the one Lily had tried to be for him, that his bed sheets had never felt so good, or smelled so good, or been slept in so well since she had run off with them wrapped against her bare skin._

* * *


	33. Feels Like Home

**FEELS LIKE HOME**

**Elizabethtown, Kentucky **

_June 16__th__, 1995 – 4:25 pm_

* * *

_Alfalfa and daisies; those were two things he remembered well about home. Well, the home that he never really got to have at all. The home that was a part of him deep down, undiscovered for too long, and only experienced on a fleeting whim of adventure with the one girl who he actually considered 'home'. _

_It was the hottest summer in 26 years. In some places, on certain roads and fields, there were more wildflowers than grass. Lily loved this, he remembered that too. _

_They were staying in the old house on Freeman Creek; old, only by reputation of having been abandoned by a broken, half diminished family. It was the house his great-grandfather had designed and built during the civil war. It was the one that his Congressman father had held onto through every move, every change of scenery they had made since his mother's death. It was in the will seventeen months before. _

_Shane and Tom had come with them, but had stayed at the house to get unpacked. Lily had insisted that Jeff take a walk with her, to clear his head and get away from all the things she could tell were haunting him. So just like she had shown him every bit of the Cape, Jeff worked on pointing out what he could remember all along their travels for the afternoon. _

_They held hands through fields of the golden, purple and sapphire flowers that drove her mad with smiles and peace. And just as they made it to the wire fence that led to the other side of the creek and river, the side with the rope swing he swore he recalled, he noticed a tangle of fiery orange flowers around one of the old wooden posts. _

"_Come here," he whispered, pulling her to them and reaching down to snatch one up. "This is the one you need."_

_Lily stood before him with wide, grinning eyes, as he wove the stem of the flower into the soft curls at her right ear. _

"_Daylily."_

"_Daylily?"_

_He nodded, "It'll close up at sunset, just a few hours from now." _

"_That's kind of sad."_

"_Why?"_

"_Well, it never gets to see the night, or the stars. That's depressing."_

_Jeff chuckled a little and leaned his forehead down to match hers, keeping her eyes on his._

"_Then I guess that's what Night Lily is for…"_

"_There's no such th--"_

_His lips caught hers quick, savoring the way that her mouth somehow seemed to taste like everything that surrounded them; the huckleberry and the dandelions, the fresh creek water and the sunlight. Something about Lily Hanson masked all the evil or the pain in the world, all the time, even when it was clearly evident. _

_He hadn't been sure he wanted to come back down here to this place, or that he wanted to bring his sister, or her, but he knew then, kissing her in the middle of nowhere in particular. Their tongues dueled for control, as often they would, and even though Kentucky had never been the most appealing place of all the ones he'd gone to before, it was on that day at least. _

_They made it to the rope swing and the dock on the creek. They swam nude and made love in the black water as the sun set over the tops of the ancient oak trees. And then they got out, got dressed, and moved on. Because that's what they did, always. They moved on to other things, better adventures and motives. There was no use in trying to justify the past. _

_That was the trouble for two people like Sheldon and Lily. _

_

* * *

_

**Cactus Road Motel - 2:45 PM**

* * *

He swore he could feel her wet skin, fresh from the creek water. It was like velvet, or better yet, like the petals of that lily. There was pain and he wondered if he'd fallen off the dock, hit the rocks on accident when he jumped in, the same way his mother always swore he would when he was four and first learning to swim alone.

He had hadn't he? He'd finally done it and proved her worrying mind correct.

He thought he was laughing but it was all in his head, and only seconds later, there was the burn of something intense enough to make even the blindest of men cry and the most determined of clowns stop laughing. It cut through his side, _my fucking kidney, are they taking my kidneys now too, _he thought with a vivid image of a greedy Mexican man standing over him, wishing the pain away but missing the success of it.

Biting his lip, Sands groaned against the back of his throat loudly and thrashed his face to the pillow.

"_Jesus_…"

Shane could only half hear his mumbles but she went on, focused on what she was doing.

"Relax, the bullet's almost out."

She tugged with the corner of a bloodied, wet cloth and the brazen end of her dad's old pocket knife, until the chipped curve of the bullet came back through the torn muscle and skin, shining under the low glow in the motel room. She watched regrettably as her brother struggled just to breathe, let alone relax. He was never good at letting other people take care of his wounds. Sheldon would just as easily have ripped the bullets out with his own bare hands as he would let someone near them with a knife and lemon.

Luckily, Shane hadn't been able to find the lemons. She laughed at the thought though.

"I got hit in the leg, Shane. Not _there_…" a louder growl ripped from his throat as the bullet slipped out of his side and onto the towel under him. Shane sat down beside him, keeping pressure on the opening.

"Well you obviously didn't seem to notice the _three_ chunks of shrapnel you acquired from your desert friends. Why am I not surprised?"

"I was a little preoccupied." And then his mind came back to earth, came back to the room and the situation at hand and he flew up in the bed and under Shane's grasp.

"Where is she, where's Lily?!"

"Jeff, lay down."

"No. Where is she? She's hit. You need to help her, not me!"

Shane shoved his bared chest until he fell back to the bed, thrashing of course. Andy was in the corner of the room for this though, and he came to assist in holding Sands' right arm down, allowing for Shane to treat his last wound the rest of the way.

"Shane, go help Lily. They shot her in the stomach."

"I can't."

"What the hell do you mean, you _can't?!_ Go. Now."

He shouted at her, blindly facing halfway in another direction as Andy and Shane shared a quick and worried glance from across the bed.

"Shane!"

"Jeff, I can't help Lily because--" he kept trying to get free of her hands and push her away, until she took a deep breath and whispered down at him solemnly, "Lily's not here."

"What?!"

"You heard me. Now lay still or I'll shoot you too."

His teeth ground together when he heard her threats in his ear, softly, demonically, the way only his little sister got in the midst of confusion and self-pain that she couldn't reveal. He could hear that she was telling the truth, just by the way her lips quivered against one another with her words. It was the sound of her attempting to hold back a million different emotions and dress his wounds at the same time. He wasn't helping her in any way and he knew this.

So he threw his head back angrily and tried to be calm, be patient, and not think about it until there was a decent moment to wonder what could have happened to the woman who had been bleeding in his arms the last time he was awake.

_My wife, she's that much more to me now._ His mind shifted back and forth, seeing images that tore deeper holes in him. _How can she just be gone? My Lily Grace, my wife, my girl. She's mine. Not theirs. _

"Shane?"

She taped down the thick gauze on his stomach and wiped away the excess blood, sighing.

"Yeah?"

"We have to go get her back from those cocksuckers."

Lucky for him, for Lily, Shane was already in the middle of finding a way.

* * *

**Somewhere down Interstate 15 en route to San Francisco…**

* * *

Lily wasn't that far out of it anymore. She could feel the rumble of a car's seat underneath of her and she could smell the gasoline being burned in the middle of the desert, by scent alone. She heard music, country, since it appeared to be all that would come in. There were no other voices, but there was wind, movement, and the smell of cheap cologne and blood.

It didn't take her too much longer to figure out that the cologne was a man's in the driver's seat of the car, and the blood, was hers. Small droplets of it came off onto her fingertips where she reached down and saw a large bandage tied around her stomach.

_A kidnapper with a heart, _she thought to herself, trying to sit up and see the face of the man, trying to figure out what she had to do to get away from him. Sliding against the worn leather of the car, she realized it was a Mustang, an old one at that. And if there was one thing she knew well, it was the backseat of an old Mustang.

"_What do you say? Take advantage of your brother's nice cleaning job on this thing?"_

"_You are desperate aren't you?"_

"_Desperate for you, kid."_

It had been freezing that night and they were stuck in a rainstorm that Lily refused to let Jeff try to drive through. Some random patch of grass by the side of the coastal road. Some random song playing on the radio and her brother's borrowed Mustang. She felt the leather under her hands now, smelled the air through the car around her, and she remembered that.

Glancing up with what felt like a swollen eye, Lily could just make out the reflection in the dusty rearview mirror. There was a beat up old baseball cap hiding the face of the man, navy blue with a half torn symbol of some kind, frayed from front to back. He had a crop of messy brown hair poking out from the back, a kissed tan sort of tan from being in the southwestern sun too long, and a rough but delicate looking hand on the wheel.

She coughed and the hat moved around, but the face and the eyes were still hidden well.

"Excuse me?" She finally asked with a tired and achy voice. "I'm bleeding."

The head half turned back toward her over the front seat, but she could only see the shadow of a nose and lips as they moved and said, "Try not to move around. I'll find a place to get you new bandages in the next town."

She nodded, confused that the voice was so soft, so understanding. Not like that of any kidnapper she'd seen on TV before. _Too weird. _

Lily relaxed into the seat again, holding her palm over the end of the bandage covering her stained t-shirt, letting the pressure keep blood from spilling beyond the fabric. Her focus was steady for a long time, as she watched the road remain dead straight for miles and miles, tumbleweeds passing them by every so often, and orange dust sliding across the already dirty windshield. The man said nothing. He just drove and tapped his fingers on the wheel to the hillbilly music.

And yet just as she began to fall into a hazy sort of rest, Lily's head tumbled down to her shoulder enough, so that the last thing she saw before trying to close her eyes, was a leather gun holster in the pocket on the back of the passenger's seat. Her eyes shifted from the handle of the gun she could see, to the mirror and the baseball cap that refused to tilt up, then right back to the gun.

Slowly, without being caught up on, she reached across and pulled the gun out of the holster carefully, then to her lap. She waited until she saw the man's hand move to turn the radio up higher, drowning out anything but the wind, and then she quietly lifted it as high as she could without being seen. She breathed deep, thought of father in that moment as the gun rose higher in her hands, and silently prayed what she was about to attempt wouldn't fail her.

When in the clear, she flew forward at the driver and wrapped her arm around his neck, half choking him as the car swerved on the empty road.

"What the fuck!"

His gargling voice was angry, anxious almost as she whispered into his ear.

"I want you to pull over. _Now…_"

The harshness in her own voice, not only struck the man with seriousness, but it scared her a little too. She sounded like Shane, like Jeff with a gun. Lily pushed the barrel of the gun into his cheek as he barely drove in a straight line.

"Pull over and let me out. Or I'll shoot you."

"I can't drive with _your_ -- get your arm _off_--"

"No. Stop the car."

The cocking of the gun in her hands made him stiffen and finally slow to a duller pace, and eventually right into a parked position on the dusty edge of the road. Lily kept the gun pointed at him as she pushed her way from behind his seat and out of the driver's side door, landing barefoot on the burning pavement.

"Shit," she hissed, trying to adjust to the heat on her feet and face. Once it was accomplished, she turned the gun back in the direction of the car, where he still sat in a shadow. "Get out."

The man hit the wheel with a fierceness that startled her into moving the gun only closer to him for safety, as he took his time getting out of the car. His worn boots hit the blacktop road one at a time, and still, as frustrating as it was to her, his cap hid his features. But something did come into a better view as he rose and stood a foot taller than her. With his head low, the symbol on the hat was revealed finally as half aged white _**B**_ against the tattered navy.

"B..." she whispered, almost crazed by the sight, eyes shifting inside her head with too many memories. But holding strong, she gritted her teeth and said, "Move."

Lily forced the gun toward his shoulder, making him walk to the back of the car. She shoved him with all the strength left in her to the trunk, checking the pockets of his jeans for other weapons as she hacked on her own pain and spewed blood to the road. Thankfully, she realized the search was of mute worth since other than the gun in her hand, he was weaponless.

"It's too bad you're a Red Sox fan," she murmured angrily, checking the ankles of his boots. Something she'd learned from being cop's daughter.

"I'm not really. Someone I knew once was."

"Someone you killed no doubt."

"No," he finally answered as he stood and turned to her again with a sinister glow in his sigh, "I didn't kill her. Why would I kill my own sister?"

And then, when Lily hadn't expected to ever see it, he turned his face up under the spoon bill of the cap and revealed it to her in the midday sunlight.

He began to speak at about the same time her jaw dropped and her heart sank.

"Good to see Jeff and Shane taught you how to protect yourself," he smirked wildly, scaring her, threatening her every muscle and brain cell, "I'll have to thank them personally."

Lily had nothing to say, locked into one of those moments where the world shifts and you're standing with one foot on either side of the fault line. She gulped once to try and contain herself from screaming or shooting or running away. But it did nothing, not with the loss of blood or the heat burning down upon her as she stared into the eyes of her kidnapper, or better yet, her savior.

The gun hit the ground seconds before she thought she would. Instead though, she fell into the strong arms that she convinced herself weren't real at all. She did however swear that the last thing she heard before completely being consumed by unconsciousness was a knowing whisper and a laugh.

"_That didn't take long."_

* * *

**Fenway Park - Boston**

_April 14__th__, 1985_

* * *

"_Tommy?"_

_Lily's eyes moved away from the passenger's side window as her brother's Mustang moved directly past the entrance of the middle school. She turned and looked at him funny, not sure what was going on._

"_You missed the school. Where are you going?"_

_He said nothing, and only faintly smiled. _

"_Tommy, I have a math test."_

"_Doesn't matter. You can make it up."_

"_Why do I need to make it up? Where are you taking me?"_

_This time, his smile widened and he looked over at her with wide eyes, an expression she hadn't seen in two months._

"_You'll see."_

_And she did, eventually enough. After her brother had driven around the city in search of decent enough parking, he took her to the café that they loved at the end of Boylston Street for brunch. He had skipped school and brought her along for the joy ride he seemed to be on for the first time in what felt like forever. This was the café their dad used to take them to on weekends, the one they had spent hours in, laughing and sharing each other's food. This was the one he went to with them, not the one he went to with his partner on the south side, not the one he'd been killed in two months before. _

_When they were done eating, they left the café and walked down the street toward Yawkey Way, Lily was still completely lost for a motive, except that her brother thought they needed a day to relax, to get their minds right. He'd caught her crying the night before, and the week before that, and basically every night since Valentine's Day, since the night of his senior dance. It wasn't some secret that everything had changed, or that missing their dad was like missing a limb, a part of each of them. It wasn't something they could hide from one another. Tommy and Lily knew each other too well. _

_They stopped at the crowded gates of Fenway and Lily looked up at her older brother suspiciously._

"_Why are we here?"_

_He laughed and rustled her hair, "Opening day. What do you think goof?"_

_Her eyes went wide and glossy, as if she were ready to cry. This was tradition, but never with Tommy. This was what her dad did with her, every year since she was old enough to understand the game at all. This was their team, not usually her brother's thing at all. _

"_You're taking me to the opening game?"_

"_Yeah, of course." _

"_Tommy--" _

_He turned his face down at his little sister to see the tears on her cheeks, and he pulled her to into his chest, hugging her as they stood in line. _

"_Dad wouldn't want you to break tradition. And someone's gotta be here to help you root on your team, right?"_

_She smiled with teary eyes into his shirt, clinging tighter. _

"_You're the best. Thank you."_

_

* * *

_

Lily shot up and awake suddenly, gasping for air and tasting nothing but dry breath on her lips and tongue from sleep. Her eyes went wide and she looked out of the same dusty windshield from the back seat of the car. It was empty, save for her, in the hazy blue darkness of early night. There were two street lights, and as she looked through the windows, she realized she was parked at a gas station in the middle of nowhere on the same lonely road as before.

At least, she thought she was alone.

She heard a tap on the half window of the backseat and turned her head immediately to see a baseball cap, two eyes from under it and a glass muffled voice.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty."

There he was again, plain as day, normal as can be. He smiled like there was nothing odd about him being alive, or here, talking to her, breathing, standing, not six feet under. If it was even him and not some bizarre reincarnated clone, come to haunt her, come to give her a heart attack.

Even the psychologist in her wasn't prepared to deal with that.

"You hungry, Lil?"

She just crossed her brow at him confusingly and slid, ever so carefully, for the opposite door of the car. After she managed to jump out, barefoot again on the cooler, oil slick pavement, she eyed him from over the roof of the candy apple red Mustang.

Her mind said, _run, run, go, now, run back to Vegas. This isn't real. Run away from it. _

And of course, her tricky heart said, _that's Tommy. I don't know how or why, but it's my big brother. He's safe._

"Well? Tacos?"

He nodded over her shoulder, still pumping gas and smiling. Lily turned slightly enough to see the sign for a small all-night taco stand next to the gas station, but shook her head no, and began walking backwards away from him.

"Lily, don't run," he warned softly.

"Don't follow me. This isn't real. I don't know who the hell you are, but don't come near me."

She was halfway towards the bathrooms of the station, when there was the sound of loud tires screeching and a tinted black SUV swerved into the lot, kicking up dust as it came at her.

"Lillian!"

She heard Tom shout, or whoever he was, and then she saw him leaping around the car and out after her. The man, her potentially reborn brother, with his strong arms, grabbed her and fell to the pavement as the truck rolled by them, firing out warning shots overhead. He covered her with his body and watched the vehicle whip in and out of the station lot in less than ten seconds.

And when it was gone, Lily was already trying to wiggle free of him, as the store attendant shouted something in Spanish at them. She struggled to get up from the ground, dirtied, bleeding, tired and losing her mind.

"Stop. Where are you going?"

"I'm getting away from _you_!"

He grasped her waist and pulled her up with him, carrying her in a struggle back to the car and sitting her down on the hood. His voice was peaceable, soft, when she heard it again.

"_Tom_. It's Tom, remember? And those guys weren't after me, they're looking for _you_."

She ignored the latter remark and headed for the first, "No you aren't!"

Her yelling was met with a fight of strength as she tried another time to run away, but he just pulled her right back into place, under his gaze and hold, her legs kicking on the hood.

"You're not my brother. My brother is dead! He's been dead for eight years!"

"Not quite eight years yet."

She stopped and looked up into his eyes, the ones she could hardly deny anymore.

"What did you say?"

He gulped with a tired breath, "It's only been seven years, ten months and eleven days. _Sis_."

He smiled again, but Lily didn't like it one bit and she shoved his arms away and stomped on bare toes and frustration for the store again. Her strength in weakness though, only lasted so long. It only lasted until she heard him call out very calmly, very knowingly after her.

"Monkey see, Lillian."

She paused, dead in her weary tracks. Her eyes suddenly welled with tears, her hands shook at her sides, and she sucked in air like it was alcohol, desperate for the pain relief. He said it a couple of more times as she stood thinking, contemplating what would happen if she did turn back, what if it was Tommy?

She didn't say it but she thought it. _'Monkey do, Tommy.' _

Something only he would know. Only the _real_ him.

_What if…_

Soon enough, when she'd fallen victim to the complete ridiculousness of the possibility itself, she shifted her weight around, wiped her tears, and looked straight across the station lot at him. He looked like Tom, he moved and talked and smiled like Tom. He was the exact height as when she'd last been in his arms, last held onto him, and last teased him from a shorter altitude. He had Tommy's eyes, he had Tommy's chuckle, and he had Tommy's promising sort of sigh.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Lily," he spoke quietly, in distress and pain of his own.

She tried to hold back the tears and whispered faintly, "Then what are going to do?"

"I'm here to save you. Aren't you ready for a hero yet?"

Lily saw him smirk playfully, the way only Tom Hanson had about him. And she was sure that's when she knew the truth. She didn't need to fall unconscious this time. Instead, she took one bare step closer to him.

"Jeff was supposed to be my hero." She sniffled with an unexpected laugh. "Funny notion, huh?"

Tom nodded with a smile.

"He can still be your hero. Just--" He stepped closer as she did again. "Let me rescue you _temporarily_. I swear I'm damn good at it. Even you'll be impressed."

She couldn't help to keep laughing through the tears that boiled over in her eyes. With a last shuffle of pain and a hand over her bleeding stomach, she reached him as he threw his arms soundly around her and held her to his warmth. She could feel him, comfortable and breathing and existing again. And she thought, _maybe that's all the proof I need. Just that._

A deep breath came and she found herself speaking just as calmly as he had, consumed with the idea and the possibility of what could have never been otherwise.

"Monkey _do_, Tommy."

* * *


	34. Won't Let You Down

**WON'T LET YOU DOWN**

**Cactus Road Motel – 11:41 PM**

* * *

It was an evening of restlessness.

A healing process of no sleep, heavy drinking and pill popping when Shane wasn't paying attention to him. She had promised without restraint to help him find Lily, if it was the very last thing they did. But there were other things to worry about, such as the case, which was still left at a dangling end to a furious sort of string.

He had laid on that old motel bed since his wounds had first been tended to and since his consciousness had first been broken. He spent the time listening intently as Shane shuffled between here and there, attempting to better the reception on her phone. She made phone call after phone call to Jack, Dane, and every other freeloading son-of-a-bitch who ever got them involved in anything that was a death trap.

She fought. For him, for Lily, for herself, all afternoon long. And he was proud of her.

Just as he reached over to the bedside table for his smokes, with a wince of lower pain in his gut, Shane came bolting through the doorway again, with a soft grunt.

"Fucking pricks."

He tried not to laugh, sighed just as angrily instead, snatched his cigarettes and drew one into his mouth.

"Anything?"

Shane fell to the opposite side of the bed in a flop, throwing her phone across the floor.

He lit up and took a deep, necessary drag to ease his own demonic spirit.

"They're keeping secrets. I can feel it."

"What secrets?"

"I don't know. But Jack just keeps talking about this dinner deal or something. In Phoenix."

"Deal for what?"

"Drugs, prostitutes, how am I supposed to know?"

"Did you ask?"

He heard his sister growl beside him and get up from the bed again.

"They won't tell me anything." She began to hunt across all surfaces of the room as he listened. "Why bother putting me on the goddamn case if they aren't going to lend me 'intelligence'!"

Something broke with her screech and he felt continuous jolts on the bed at his feet. Piles of clothes hit his feet as she threw things into a duffel bag and zipped it closed.

"Fuck em'. I'm doing this myself."

Sands sat up as quickly as he could with dizziness and pain in his stomach and leg, then limped to stand as Shane rustled through a few last items.

"You don't have a lead, Shane."

"Phoenix. That's a lead."

When she brushed past him just enough, Sands grabbed his sister's arm gently and held her still for a moment, breathing heavily towards her.

"And what the hell happens when you get to Phoenix, Shy?"

"I don't know, but we have to get there. You want to find her don't you?" She struck him hard with the inquiry, not meaning to, but still hitting his heart. "She's wherever they are. I know it. And if Jack thinks they're in Phoenix. Then she's somewhere in Phoenix."

He breathed and released her arm as she stumbled back and grabbed her gun and the room key off the table. Sands was temporarily lost within the madness of the entire thing surrounding his head. They'd been so close when Tuzla's men were in Vegas, and they'd missed something, something that their intelligent buddies back in D.C had forgotten to mention.

Proximity. Equal awareness. And return vengeance for their run on Tampa Bay.

Jimmy was pissed and he could feel it no matter how he tried to think about the situation in a lighter note. Lily was with them, she had to be, who else would snatch her from this room? Bleeding and from right out of his arms?

As he heard the door squeak open and Shane sigh once more with the heat of the Vegas night, he tilted his head towards her general direction and did the exact same.

"Are you going to help me save your wife or what?"

His mind twisted with her words as he focused more clearly on stepping to the doorway from the bed. He hadn't thought to mention it, but he also hadn't thought to hide the truth from anyone either. He just couldn't let himself believe it that it was less than 24 hours since she said, _'I do.'_

He heard a laugh come from Shane as she dropped her bags once more and return to him, more understanding, more released in frustration. Her small hand hit his shoulder, then his cheek, in a way he hadn't known from her in too long.

"I had a feeling that's where you disappeared to last night."

He chuckled a little and without fully knowing why, rose his hand to cover hers on his face, patting it softly.

"And you didn't try to call Lily and warn her before I stumbled here with the rock?"

"No need. Warnings don't work with you two. Never have."

Shane smiled past what she thought were coming tears and held his hand as she tugged him out the door.

"Come on. Let's go rescue your damsel in distress."

Sands nodded in agreement and for some odd reason that he couldn't quite explain, thought instantly of the night she got on the plane with them in D.C.

"_**I know who you're after."**_

"_**Good for you. Now go home." **_

"_**Jeff…"**_

"_**What?"**_

"_**I need to go. I need to help. For Tommy."**_

And he'd let her follow. He'd let her get right on that plane, headed for eventual disaster.

As he hobbled to the SUV in the purest of darkest, the starkest of loneliness now, he could only tell himself one thing, over and over again.

'_I'm getting that girl back. I've worked too hard not to. I'm getting my Tiger Lily back.'_

* * *

**Mojave Freeway – 6:01 AM**

* * *

There was no more holding back, no more lying, no more secrets.

He told her everything.

"_I want you to start at the beginning."_

"_You mean the end."_

_Lily just scowled at him from across the table in an all night diner on the California borderline. Not that she was even thinking about where they were. It was the furthest thing from her mind in that moment actually._

"_The end of who you were to US, yeah. But the beginning of who you are now."_

_He sighed and shook his head low._

"_I'm still the exact same person, Lillian. I just got an ultimatum to be a ghost for a while."_

A while, had become seven years, ten months and now twelve days as they sat watching the sun come up over the distant plains and mountains. Between sips of stale coffee and nervously shared bites of blueberry pie, Lily got every detail she ever thought she'd _never _need in life.

To break it down in her mind though, it was as simple a story as such.

Her brother Tommy was _nearly_ killed on that rooftop in Brooklyn, that rainy night in March. Jeff and Shane were both well aware he was still conscious and breathing when they arrived at the hospital with the DA and authorities. But while they sat in the waiting room for news that regrettably turned tragic, New York's finest doctors were repairing every last broken bit of him in an undisclosed ward of the hospital.

It had been a higher power, one from behind a desk in midtown D.C, that had kept him alive.

A power called _Intelligence_.

"_So what, they wanted to use you for some special assignment?"_

_He swallowed a forkful of pie and whipped cream, "Sort of."_

"_What then?" She filled her mouth the same way with a crooked brow._

"_Intelligence needed what they like to call a 'Poltergeist OP'."_

"_Meaning…?"_

"_Meaning, that I would be in the shadows, collecting information for them until I didn't need to be in the shadows anymore. Until my enemy was finally killed."_

_Lily's eyes grew wide for a second as she wiped her lip._

"_Tuzla?"_

"_Oh good, you know all about him," Tommy laughed warmly._

So he was a phantom, from May of 1996 until now, and still flourishing through this desert valley around them. He explained that it was a sworn deal, that the second Jimmy Tuzla's operations were torn to pieces, the very millisecond the bastard was caught up on, he would be officially free.

Unfortunately, as Lily already well knew, Jimmy Tuzla wasn't just some ordinary fish to catch.

As she recalled, he was a shark.

"_**Let me get this straight. You all are purposefully walking into the lion's den, basically doing a tap dance on his boots, and then waiting to see how he'll react?"**_

_**Sands hummed with relaxed laughter behind her as she glanced back to see his smile. Danny was nodding when she returned to him.**_

"_**And this is what the CIA does all the time? Instead of scaring the guys you want to catch, you piss them off."**_

"_**I could have warned you earlier, but figured you would lose your damn mind over it. Come to think of it," he smirked as he stretched out, legs around her, "You may still go nuts on me."**_

"_**Well it would have been nice to know that we were going to be shark bait for the afternoon…"**_

"_**Don't worry. These won't be the big sharks. Not yet."**_

He was right when he said _'not yet.'_

There had been no consequences in Florida, no one hurt, nothing to worry about except their own dangerous emotions running wild. Out here though, in the middle of gun country, where too much went unnoticed if you were smart about it, Tuzla was king. And judging by where she was now, with her still undisclosed, spirit like brother, it was a most assured, monarchial land.

Tommy explained that the CIA had scouted Jeff at his own request from within. He had asked them to bring in his old partner, the one guy he knew could get the job done and finally finish off Tuzla for good, thus in return, freeing him from the underworld of agency protection.

But Tuzla disappeared. And not only did he disappear, but he did it for seven long years, leaving Tom to wander aimlessly between other task force operations in Texas, California and even South America. He was used as a spy, the collector of all things 'intelligent', living out an endless sentence in a purgatory he couldn't shake and one his friends and family couldn't either.

"_You know, they had me on this one short job over in Boston during that first year. They sent me in to grab some information on a nuclear warfare threat that was circling a few crazy immigrants down on the docks." He smiled and took a strong sip of his coffee, dwelling into what Lily could see was unexplainable sadness. "While I was in town, I drove by Harvard Yard and your dorm building."_

_Her lips quivered as her eyes focused on twitching brow, "You did?"_

"_Yeah. I saw you walking with a group of friends between classes."_

"_Why didn't you--"_

"_I couldn't." He cut her off gently and she knew well enough why. "Don't think I didn't want to. I would have given whatever life I had left at that point to get out and run to you, Lily."_

_She was crying when he removed his focus from his cup and to her eyes again._

"_I was always there. I was always around, you know."_

"_You were?"_

_He nodded swiftly and reached across the table, pulling her hand into his, squeezing, remembering how it used to feel smaller to him._

"_I was there the day you graduated. And I was there the day of Sean's funeral."_

_She thought about tiny things, memories of her own, of her college days, of her once-was fiancé, of her life that he apparently hadn't missed as much as she had believed. And every bit of it, brought stronger, more resolved tears._

"_I've been watching out for you and mom all this time. Any way I can. I've been so scared that something would happen. That if they ever found out about me, they'd be after you. Or even just out of spite for not getting glory enough from 'killing' me. I couldn't let that happen. And I couldn't miss the life that went on without me."_

_Lily wiped her face with her free hand and then brought it down to cover both of theirs together, while he did the exact same. After a minute of deep crying, she eventually spoke in return._

"_I followed Shane because I wanted to avenge you. Did you know that?"_

_He smirked lightly, "I assumed as much when I heard you were trailing behind."_

"_I couldn't let them do it. Not without me. I wanted to be the one to--"_

_Her voice cracked with solemn fear, anger and he moved both of their tangled hands up to reach her cheeks with his thumb, brushing back her hair and tears. _

"_Be the one to what?" He finally pushed._

_Lily's eyes softened with a wet turn up again, "I wanted to be the one to kill him. I wanted to do it, put the bullet through him."_

"_You?"_

_His sarcasm was playful, the way she remembered and she giggled away the tears._

"_Yes, me. I have exceptional aim now, according to my own 'personal' CIA trainers."_

_He laughed out louder and carefully stood to walk around to her side of the booth. Tom slid in and brought his arms to cover her entirely, a million times stronger than she remembered them, but no less protective, no less caring or warm for that matter. _

_Lily's wet face was pressed into his chest, hidden under his swarming hug, breathing him in, recalling to her memory everything she'd ever known about her older brother, all the things she'd ever taken for granted._

"_You don't have to worry about raising the dead anymore, or getting revenge for me. I'm right here," he whispered as he brushed her hair back and rubbed her shoulders, "I'm not going anywhere but back home with you. Just as soon as I get my call. And trust me," he kissed her head and waved the waitress over for the check, "It's coming sooner than you think."_

_Lily clung to him tighter, not wanting to see the world again. The blackness that her hidden eyes in his chest created was enough for her and more. It was her own blackness, finally. to matched the one Jeff constantly stumbled in, and the one that Tommy had been wandering through all alone for seven years. _

"_I know it sounds cheesy, considering how weak a point it is, Lil," he gently brought her face back to see her eyes then, to see every bit of the emotion covering her face, "But I've missed you every single second, of every single day."_

_There was a smile. A check. And a whisper._

"_I missed you more, Tommy."_

And so she probably had.

Lily had missed her brother like there was an entire half of her body missing for all those years, only now being returned to her by the thieves who had also sucked her _husband_ into a Mexican torture fest, and risked the life of her _sister in law_ countless times before that as well. Admitting all of it, was more than she ever thought she would have to.

The CIA had pulled every bit of life from her family that it ever could, despite their best efforts to _'retain'_ life on a whimsical contract. Tom was dangling on a loose wire with both his feet tied over his head, just waiting, praying minute by minute, that someone would cut him free again.

He was ready to be a free man instead of a just covert puppet.

There was only one minor detail in the scheme that Tommy had failed purposefully to mention.

Lily stood at the front counter beside him as he paid for their pie and coffee, toying quietly with a rack of brochures and tourist attraction ads. She leafed through half a dozen or more before she realized they all had one thing in common.

They weren't for Nevada anymore. They were ads for California.

Ads for Disneyland and Grauman's Chinese Theater and the San Diego Zoo.

"Tom?" She asked softly, lifting one of up with a view of Monterrey Beach. "Why are we in California?"

He turned and accepted his change, shoving it into his pocket.

"We're going to San Francisco until everything's clear."

"What?"

She didn't like that answer. Especially because she had to reprimand herself for not paying attention to the driving they had already been doing and the road they'd already put between them and Vegas. She'd been so concerned with him, with the rising past, that she'd hardly noticed the change of zip codes for two hundred miles.

"We need to go back to Vegas and help Shane."

He just shook his head with a disbelieving laugh and walked her towards the door, thanking the waitress as they went.

"We're not going back to Vegas. We're not going anywhere near this thing. You're done."

"No, I'm not. Not even close."

Lily stumbled down to the dusty pink desert lot of the early morning, heading backwards for the Mustang as she tried to reason with him.

"I have to help Jeff and Shane and the guys. They're all still stuck in the middle of it."

"Yeah, and they're trained agents. It's their job."

"Tommy." She stopped him abruptly in the middle of the lot, her hand pressed to his chest as she stared up at him desperately. "I want to back. _Now_."

"No, Lily. No."

She wasn't taking it, that answer. She'd already heard it far too much for a two week stint.

Before he could pull the keys from his jacket pocket, she managed to force her hand inside and grab them herself, darting off in a kick of dust when he tried to stop her.

"Lily! Damn!"

She ran for the car on the other side of the lot. A hand to her pain stricken but bandaged stomach, dirty jeans and sliding boots were all she knew as she made it to the tail end and slid across to the driver's door. Lily ripped it open, jumped inside and locked it, all before Tom came anywhere near the vehicle.

She could hear every one of his screams but could only smile.

"Lillian!" He jogged to the driver's window as she turned the car on in the morning heat. A tap startled her only slightly on the window. "Open this door. You're not going anywhere."

It was faint from the closed in space, but he heard her say with a twisted smirk, "Wanna bet?"

"Lily, don't even think about--"

But mere seconds before he was able to finish, she had slammed her foot into reverse and the tired old car spun out in a 180 towards the highway exit again. Tom stumbled in front of the headlights, his warning silhouette making her laugh as it played against the purple shade of the sky at a distance.

He was already dead to half the world, and the other half wanted him dead. And yet there he stood, testing her, not realizing the risk that lingered overhead with her after all this time. The Lily he remembered was a medical student, a book worm, a deviant sort of beauty queen in their small home town.

Same as Jeff though, he had a lot to learn again.

"Get out of the car! You're not going anywhere!"

She shook her head and revved the engine, pressing her boot toe down on the gas just enough to make him squirm out in the grassy patch of dust lined road. He caught his breath as she watched for a single moment. Then, when he shouted her name, she did it again.

"Jesus Christ, Lily!"

He leapt three feet in the air and she laughed out, begging him to reconsider with eyes alone through the sandy windshield. And almost before she believed it, and after one more attempt to run over his feet, he gave in with surrendering hands raised and a cautious swagger to the passenger's side.

Tom had seen his life flash before his eyes plenty of times already. But having it at the hands of his sister, the one he hadn't seen in a sure fire decade, one that had become a force he could hardly reckon with, he had no choice but to shake his head with a smile as he approached the car, laughing to himself alone.

'_God love her. She's still Sands' girl all over.'_


	35. Highway Back to Hell

**

* * *

**

HIGHWAY BACK TO HELL

**January 25****th**** - Indio, California **

_Two hours later…_

* * *

Lily's hands were determined on the wheel. Her head was lost somewhere between the drumming of The Ramones and the names of passing desert valley towns. They were halfway across California when they had made their U-turn from Route 66 onto Highway 10. And now that they were halfway back across the border and into Arizona, she turned the radio down.

Tom stopped tapping his hand on his leg and boot to look at her.

"You didn't say why Tuzla went to Phoenix. What's he doing there?"

"Weapons ring trade, disguised as a cocktail party."

He smirked wickedly and turned the radio back up. Lily soon enough turned it down again.

"Why is he making a trade out here, if he lives in Florida? Don't they have the same weapons and drugs there?"

Tom laughed and shook his head at her.

"What's so funny? I'm serious."

"I know you are. That's why it's funny."

She scowled and waited for him to regain his composure and answer. He eventually did.

"They don't call it the 'Wild West' just for the hell of it you know?"

"Yeah, but that's just old cowboy stuff, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy."

He twisted his brow at her with a tight lipped smile, "Lil, nothing's changed out here. Guns are still the main sport in these mountains. Everything goes under the radar, that's why outlaws from the east make the pilgrimage out here. They know they can make their deals, get their guns cheap and then hightail it back home. I mean Jesus, half the guys that Jimmy does his business with in Vegas and Reno, are cops."

"No way…" she scoffed, pressing the gas harder.

"I'm not kidding. This isn't the east coast, where there's law enforcement on every corner. And this road you're heading down, the one you so _desperately_ feel you need to take again…"

She shot him a sidelong glance with a bite of her lip.

"Its drop off point is hotter than the hinges itself. Phoenix is Hell right now, simply because Jimmy's there running the show. This little party of his, you'll see."

"See what?"

Tom shuffled in his seat to get comfortable again, sipping at his warm beer before replying, "Let me put it this way. There are only three things on the menu at one of these shindigs…cocaine, guns and _cash_. With half naked women for dessert."

Lily watched from the corner of her eye as he raised one finger at a time, listing them off for her to visibly see. Her concentration on the road was weakening the more she learned, the more she admitted the danger of it all to herself, despite her best efforts to ignore it.

"What do you think Shane and the guys are planning to do then?"

He sighed with a soft chuckle, "Well, if I know Shane like I still think I do, she's probably planning some sort of a masked counterattack. It's her forte. And all at the scheming hand of that mustache wearing _husband_ of yours, I'm sure."

She giggled at the thought for a second; nearly forgetting that she had let her newly adopted wedding ring sit idly on her finger, sparkling in the California sunrise as she drove. Lily gripped the wheel tighter, her boot firmer on the gas pedal and eyes focused on the blacktop for miles ahead. When her mind had played over a hundred different thoughts and when _My Sharona _had gained enough finger taps and air guitar solos from her phantom brother in the passenger's seat, she came to only one conclusion.

And it was a whispering plea at that.

"I want to stop and call him, Tommy."

* * *

**Brewster – Cape Cod**

**October 23****th****, 1995 **

* * *

"_It's up here a little farther." _

_Lily tugged him along, as usual, giving him a run, or walk in this case, for his money. _

"_Easy killer, the thing isn't going anywhere."_

"_Unless a hurricane blows through here before you can get to the top of the hill."_

_He stopped then, contemplating her tease in the middle of the road. Lily hesitated to move further, turning to see his twisted brow and well acted out sadness. _

"_Would you come on and stop being a baby?"_

"_Say you're sorry."_

"_No. Come on."_

_Jeff raised his brow for a moment, taking her refusal and then throwing himself down to the ground, unconcerned with any cars that might try to pass on the back road. _

"_Jeff, what are you doing? Stop being an idiot. Let's go."_

_He crossed his arms, his legs, determined to rule over her wishes. Lily though, sprang behind him on the road, shoving on his back, pulling on his arms, begging him with laughter to move when she heard a distant car coming down the hill. _

"_Jeff, stop it! Move!"_

_The more fear that sounded in her voice, the wider he smiled. And when he saw the bumper of the black car rushing towards them, he immediately jumped up from the ground, with Lily still dangling from his back, screeching. _

"_Jeff!"_

_She hugged his neck as he trampled to the side of the road, in time to be missed by the honking Toyota. He could hear her breathing deeply at his ear, in complete horror. All he could do though, was laugh, reach behind him to wrap her legs firmly around his waist and then start walking up the hill again, as though nothing had happened. _

"_I can't believe you," she mumbled breathlessly on his shoulder, "Pain in the ass."_

"_I love you too, sugar breeches."_

_Lily just shook her head, rested against him, and refused let go until she saw the house at the end of the road, on the coastline, and slid from his back. _

"_This is it, the old Quinn house."_

_Jeff stood half motionless in the midst of the home's front yard alone. She hadn't lied when she said it was perfect. It looked like it was three stories, at least a hundred years old, if not more, with worn wooden trim, blue shutters, wrap around porches and a whitewash fence leading right down to the bay. It was abandoned, as it rightfully should have been in his mind. Dream houses like these should never be owned or lived in. It defeats the dream. _

_He looked over in a sweetened sort of daze to see her standing alone, at the edge of the property, admiring it, gawking for all it was worth, ogling over her distant fantasy. _

"_It's beautiful, huh?"_

_She never turned to look at him, just kept staring, and he just kept staring at her. _

"_Gorgeous," he murmured back, outlining her body in the fall breeze with eyes and a knowing imagination alone. _

"_I've never been inside before, but I'd bet it has five bedrooms."_

_Her eyes shifted back at him and caught his full attention as he walked towards her, wrapping his arms firmly about her waist and hugging her to him as he bent to her level, his head on her shoulder. _

"_There are only two of us, Tiger Lily. And I prefer to share a bed."_

_She laughed and held onto his arms at her stomach, trying to think beyond his lips on her neck. _

"_The other rooms would be for guests, stupid. Well that and--"_

"_And what?"_

_She twisted her head to see his eyes looking up at her shoulder then whispered, "Babies."_

_Jeff's brow rose, his head moved away from her shoulder and he suddenly stiffened. She knew he was afraid of that word, she knew he nearly died at the thought, but she turned in his arms anyway and pulled his face down to hers. _

"_Did I scare you again?"_

_Her smile brightened him suddenly and he threw away the nervous thoughts in his mind. Instead, he smirked tiredly and shook his head. _

"_No. I was just thinking--"_

"_Thinking what?"_

"_Well thinking about how we should probably get started right now. I mean, if we have four extra rooms to fill with screaming little 'things'," she laughed at the teasing clench in his jaw and the sickened mock of his eyes as he gulped, "We better hurry up and get cracking."_

_She could only shake her head. _

"_Come on," he yanked on her hand, back down the road from whence they came. "Let's go. No time to waste."_

"_Jeff," she begged, not sure if he was serious. She hated never being able to tell with him. "We can't have babies now. I'm not ready."_

_He stopped in the road once more, right in front of her and peered down with that deathly somber stare of his. _

"_I know that kid, but…" his tease was immediately met with the strength of his arms, lifting her clear from the ground, over his shoulder. She screamed with laughter as he concluded fiercely, making stride down the street, "…We have to practice!"_

* * *

**Route 60 Shell Station - Wickenburg, Arizona**

_**9:25 AM**_

* * *

"Okay, okay. I got one. I spy, with my little eye…" Andy paused with a tormenting laugh that made Sands' skin crawl from the seat behind him in the truck. "…something brown."

He could hear the pre-historically rusted gears in Carter's brain crunching together as his fingers tapped on the steering wheel of the car, shuffling for an answer. Sands' wanted to kill the both of them. He had wanted to kill them since he was forced into this little road trip back in Vegas.

"Man, I don't know. Is it that old gas barrel over there?"

"No."

"Is it that woman's hair?"

"No."

He growled under his breath at their continued charade. There was little sympathy left in his world, based primarily on the fact that two agents who used to be controlled by the very jerk of his words in battle, were now playing a game in his presence that required conscious vision to play, let alone to win. Sands' drummed his cigarette on the half rolled window and listened to the rush of gasoline through the engine's guts as Shane pumped it.

He wondered what sort of a spectacle a mere slip of his finger on that smoke would do.

_Beautiful, _he thought chuckling, _a beautiful fucking mess that would be. _

Suicidal thoughts were all he had to fill the empty spaces again, the ones that Lily had occupied and tamed for him.

"How about, is it the Mexican guy on that old billboard?"

He'd had enough of the game. He wanted to win.

Sands crushed his cigarette just as Andy replied with another 'no' to Carter. Then with as swift a blind movement as ever before, he jolted towards the front seat of the truck, reaching out until he felt the neckline of Andy's t-shirt, gripped firmly and pulled him to where he could feel his choking breath on his nose.

"You little prick."

Andy gulped and Carter tried not to let his laughter come from between his tied lips.

Sands' snarled with his words, blowing excess cigarette smoke into Miles' eyes.

"I'm blind and you're playing 'I _fucking_ SPY'."

"Christ man, I--"

He choked him harder for a mere second and then forced him away until he heard Andy's head hit the window of the truck. Carter couldn't back on roaring with laughter and Sands' was proud for it. He reached for the handle of the back door and jumped down from the truck.

"By the way, the _brown_ you're looking for Danny Boy, is that pile of dog shit at 2'oclock."

Carter looked through the windshield at the hint and sure as day, saw the awaiting canine gift, smiling with amazement back at Sands as he mumbled, "Rookie douche," before slamming the door and feeling his way to the end of the SUV.

He could still hear Carter teasing Andy with amusement as he made it to where he could smell the gasoline mixed with Shane's perfume. Not to his surprise, she was laughing quietly too.

"You really know how to prove every sorry bastard in the world wrong, don't you?'"

He threw his head back to the car window and breathed deep.

"How much longer are you going to make me deal with this? Where the hell is Phoenix?"

"I think it's another 50 miles or so."

Shane heard the click of the nozzle and tore away the gas pump at the exact moment that she felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket. When she saw the number though, it wasn't one she recognized, although the area code was for California.

She answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

There was a pause of silence, then a static induced voice.

"_Shane? Can you hear me?"_

Her eyes went wide as she smacked the tank lid on the SUV and peered up at her brother.

"Lily?"

His attention was gained on impact, his boots hard on the ground and his hands fierce on the car.

"_Yeah, it's me."_

"Give me the phone," he demanded, reaching for it as Shane stepped away, ignoring him.

"Where are you? Did they take you to Phoenix with them?"

Sands, livid as he stumbled around blankly, followed the sound of Shane's voice and the faint one he could hear in the reception of the phone.

"_I'm not with Tuzla's guys. Can I talk to Jeff?"_

"Who are you wit--?"

He landed behind her and tore the phone away, somehow unexpectedly as usual, before Shane could finish the question.

"Lily? Baby…?"

"_Jeff?"_

"Yeah, yeah," he rubbed his forehead harshly with a smiled and walked around in circles at the sound of her shaking lip into the receiver. "Are you okay? Where are you? Who's got you?"

"_I'm fine," _he could hear her crying and it ripped new holes in his already bruised heart_, __"I'm okay. I'm just outside of San Francisco."_

* * *

From inside of a dusty phone booth in the middle of a desert crossroads on the California borderline, Lily stood with trembling hands on the receiver, a quivering lip as she listened to him speaking to her on the other end, and a trained eye on a napkin that Tom used as her cue card. She wasn't allowed to mention him, for obvious reasons. And she wasn't allowed to mention that she was headed to Phoenix.

If she wanted to help the case, she was forced to promise doing it on Tom's terms.

"_Lily, baby listen to me, who are you with?"_

She gulped and waited for Tommy to write something for her. Then she recited.

"Jack, your boss, he sent someone in for me. Another agent--" she choked on the response and wiped away the burning tears at the corners of her eyes.

"_What agent? Do you know their name?"_

More writing, confused patience and a reply came.

"Smith, Agent Smith. He's okay, I'm alright with him."

"_And he's taking to San Fran? Why?"_

"Protection. I'm not allowed near the case again."

She heard him sigh, almost as if in relief, for her safety more or less.

"Where are you guys?"

"_Some dead end town outside of Phoenix. We're chasing Tuzla. We thought you were with them, I'm glad you're not though." _Lily wiped her nose and eyes with a clean napkin from Tom, trying to get control of her emotions and trying not to let Jeff's voice alone break her down so easily. _"You swear you're alright? You were bleeding, they hit you. Did this guy help you at all?"_

"I swear. I'm fine, Jeff. Bandaged and walking around. Are you okay? Did they hit you?"

She heard him choke on air, as if he were in desperate need of tears that couldn't ever come.

"_I'm fine, now that I can hear your voice."_

Lily smiled with brighter, drier eyes as she looked to Tom and his new note on the napkin.

"What's your plan when you get to Phoenix? What's Tuzla doing there?"

Her brother nodded and rubbed her back with assurance.

"_I don't know. We'll find the bastard's little gathering and go in undercover, most likely. It doesn't matter. I just want to get to you. Tell that babysitter agent of yours to bring you back this way, to meet somewhere. I want you."_

With that, she was crushed all over again. Lily fell to the dusty glass of the booth, her forehead pressed against the heat of it, eyes focused on a distant mountain range. She could feel Tom's hand on her back, still caressing for comfort, but it did very little.

"_I want to touch you so bad, Lily. I'm a miserable bastard without you here to keep me in line. Don't let him take you all the way out to the Pacific, come back this way. I'll come and get you. We'll leave and let Shane do this. We'll go wherever you want, I swear." _

She bit down on her lip to keep from sobbing uncontrollably, until she tasted the coppery sickness of her own blood. And still, all she could hear in the whole world, above the sound of circling hawks and randomly passing cars, was him.

"_Talk to me, baby. Say something."_

"I--" she was strangled with a wave of tears before she found the handle to speak, "I can't, Jeff. You need to stay where you are, with Shane. She needs you."

"_I don't give a fuck," _she heard his body slam against something, his fist the same. _"I need you."_

She couldn't deny him her agreement.

"I know. But you have to stay. You have to get Tuzla, like you promised, for Tommy."

There was a sigh, a silent understanding between her crying and his breathing. And then there was his voice, the one that haunted her thoughts every second he was gone, just like all those years ago.

"_Do you know how much I love you, Lily?"_

She leaned harsher against the glass pane of the booth, noticing with the silence, how Tom had moved out and started back for the car.

"I know," she finally replied. "You love me same as I love you. Like a damn fool."

She heard him laugh softly and it warmed her even more than the California sun could.

"_That's right. And don't you forget it." _There was solid contentment in his tone, as he spun the sweetest words, from far too close to be so far away. _"When this fucker is dead, I'm coming to get you. I'm coming for you, and we're getting on the next plane headed for Boston. You hear me?"_

She nodded with a shaky, 'yeah.'

"_We're driving down to the Cape, and I'm going to buy you a house with blue shutters and a white picket fence and one of those widow walks, right there on the shore. I remember everything. I know what you want, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life giving it to you. You believe me, don't you?"_

Lily was far from speechless. She was near to mute just from the impact of choking tears lodged in her throat. All she could do was nod, cry, and let out a short, whimpering, 'yes.'

"_This is it. I'm done after this, just like I said. Tuzla's the line. I'm all yours after him."_

She hoped and prayed from then, until she hung up with him and walked back to the Mustang in a million broken pieces, and then until they drove through the Phoenix city limits, that he was right this time.

Lily wasn't ready to be disappointed by his job again.


	36. Rough and Ready

**ROUGH AND READY**

**Phoenix, Arizona – The Clarendon Hotel**

_Noon_

* * *

"This has to be it. Look at all the Mercedes' and Bentley's. He's got the place booked for a hundred or more of his closest friends tonight."

Carter took a drag of his cigarette, eyeing up the hotel front at a distance with Shane. "Think we'll get a room?"

"Of course. We have mafia connections all the way from Brooklyn."

He smirked, "Ah yes, dearest _Valentino_..."

"Good ole' Tony," she replied, dialing her phone without a hitch.

Sands snored in the far back of the truck, while Andy worked surveillance of the hotel's perimeter. Shane waited for the ever-pronounced and protected three rings, before she heard a gruff and impatient, "What, hello?"

His thick accent, especially when turned to speakerphone, left them all completely humored.

"Tony. It's Shane. I need your help, ASAP."

"Shanie? Baby girl, what in God's name could ya need from me nah?"

"I need your connection, your _irrepressible_ name."

"For what? Guns? I'm out of that now whole thing, little Sands."

"No, not guns. We have plenty of those. I need a hotel room."

There was a silent pause and a loud, grumbling stretch from the far back seat as they all turned to watch Sands wipe the drool from his mouth. When Tony spoke again, it was amid the shuffle of Sands to the front of the truck, as soon as he heard the voice.

"Where are you?"

"We're in Phoenix."

Sands threw himself to the seat space beside Andy, blindly shoving him and his computer equipment aside.

"Move your ass, Radio Shack."

Miles rolled his eyes and gave him space, as he leaned over where he heard Valentino's voice emitting from.

"Tony."

"Yeah, what?"

"It's Sands, man."

"There's my boy! What the fuck are you and your sister doing twisted up out in Phoenix?"

He sighed, scratching his five o'clock shadow roughly, "We're on Jimmy Tuzla's tail again."

There was dead silence, then a grunt and a slamming fist of gold jewelry to a marble countertop. Sands and Shane knew the sound well.

"That goddamn prick still owes me for getting his ass out of the clink in '82."

"Well, he's about to have his ass blown off. Shane's right, we need a room."

Shane interjected, "He's got the place booked, Tony. But your name will get us in."

"Alright, alright. Fuggetaboutit, I'll take care o' it. Just give me a few minutes."

There were smiles and gratitude when they hung up. Sands' slumped back against the leather seat, drawing out a fresh cigarette and listening to the sound of Carter and Shane's plotting. They had the entire hotel mapped out, and predicted that the soiree would most likely be taking place on the 'oh so quaint', multimillion dollar, rooftop lounge. Thanks to the Rolling Stones and a few trashed couches by Steven Tyler's posse, it's what the Clarendon was famous for.

It didn't take Tony long, ten minutes tops, to book them a suite on the top floor, as near to the rooftop entrance as was physically possible. With mock wigs, hats and mustaches, they checked in under assumed names, all of which were heavily mafia related.

They made it to their room. They set up as many taps as they could with retained conspicuousness. And while Sands rested off the exhaustion from his wounds and heavy, empty heart, Shane and Andy ran off to gather up the proper attire they would need from a boutique in downtown Phoenix.

Stretched across the bed, Sands held Shane's phone in one hand and a Corona in the other, just waiting. It had been three hours since he'd heard from her. She had promised to call when she got settled with that 'Agent Smith' in their San Francisco hotel room. The thought of which alone, made his already aching, bleeding gut swell with agony, jealousy, hatred toward every pair of balls in existence beside his.

He was soothed only by the bed beneath him, the air conditioning, and the sound of water running by Carter in the bathroom mixed with the vibration of the phone, when it finally rang two hours later. He was quicker to answer than ever before.

"Hello?"

"_Jeff. It's me."_

He sat up quick, jolting with the pain, "God, you had me nervous."

"_Why? I'm fine, we just checked into a room."_

"A room, a _single_ room? With _him_?"

* * *

From merely across the street, at the doorway of a dress shop, Lily stared at the impending height of the hotel, the phone pressed tenderly to her ear as she listened to the reacting jealousy in his voice. Only she knew, that it was more than pointless.

"Yes, one room. He's not allowed to keep me out of his sight. It's his job."

"_Well he better keep his hands off you while you're in his line of vision."_

"Trust me. It's not an issue."

She smiled lightly in spite of the situation at hand and threw her shade covered eyes to Tommy, walking back in her direction from the hotel. He had assured her he had connections with some ex-drug lord back in the Bronx, some oddball Italian named Curly Gallo. She had laughed at first, but was grateful to know that all of his undercover, 'poltergeist' work over the years, had lent him the right names and contacts when it was needed.

He stepped past her with a consciously safe hand on her cheek before moving into the tux store. Lily turned back to her conversation when she heard his voice again.

"_Is he there with you now?"_

"Why?"

"'_Cause I wanna know what you're wearing over those pretty little bandages of yours."_

She laughed and leaned against the window of the shop, "You really are desperate aren't you?"

"_More than you'll ever know."_

Lily sighed, pushed her aviators higher, and tapped her boot on the cement before replying in a coy whisper.

"I'm wearing nothing but black lace. Just for _you_," she teased, wishing that in actuality, she was wearing nothing but lace, lying underneath of him, a hundred miles from this desert wasteland.

"_I do love you in lace, Mrs. Sands."_

The name alone was enough to make her cry, but she held tight, "Don't I know it."

"_I wish I was where you are. I'd be tearing through every scrap of that lace with my teeth. I'd kiss and lick every single, fiery inch of you, Lil. Right down to your sweet, wet cu--"_

"Lily."

Her concentration, which was ever hot and bothered without the assistance of the midday Arizona sun, was broken when Tom poked his head out of the shop.

"Come on, we got to hurry."

She nodded, gulped back her twisted thoughts from public view, and heard Jeff again.

"_Lily? You there?"_

"I'm here. But I have to go."

"_What are you talking about? What else do you have to do but wait around for me?"_

She paused, thinking fast on her feet,_ literally_ so. "My mom's calling in. I need to make sure she's okay and not freaking out. I'll call you back. We'll finish this then."

He sighed tiredly and left her with a mere, _"Love ya,"_before she hung up and went inside to find Tommy.

* * *

**The Clarendon Hotel – 7:20 PM**

* * *

At the top of the world, where no one could see what existed in room 1206, four agents were getting dressed for an event that had been too long coming, and one that for two agents, a brother and his little sister, was going to be the settled score of a lifetime, _honestly_. This was the night they had begged to have for nearly eight years.

It was a night of vengeance.

"Hold still, will you?"

Sands shifted his weight against the bathroom counter, letting Shane nearly choke him in the process of fixing his bolo tie. He wasn't much for this part of the job, the 007 part. It was too cheesy, _even_ for him and his fake mustache collection.

"I'd like to breathe, some time tonight."

He hacked up what sounded like a hairball and she laughed, finishing with a pat on his chest and a button of his coat breast.

"Here," she grasped a pair of brand new black Ray Ban's from the marble counter and placed them in his hands, "I found these in town. They're classier looking than your other ones. Early birthday present."

"Aviators?"

"You know it," she teased, moving them up to replace the older ones. "There."

Shane stood back and took a look at him. He could be handsome when he actually tried. Although she was sure that the rugged, roughneck look was what Lily and every other woman in the world had gone for to begin with anyway.

"You look good, but now you need a disguise."

"Don't think the tux and shave is enough for me?"

Shane sighed with a laugh, ignoring the way he stroked his chin so suggestively and she began tearing through his case of faux facial hair and paints.

"Who do you want to be? Dali or Dr. John?"

He chuckled and felt around on the counter for his discarded jeans. When he found them, he pulled something from the back pocket and then dropped it into Shane's hand.

"Glue that one on."

She took a quick look at it and gave an odd smile before glancing up at his content face.

"Going for the Burt Reynolds look, huh?"

He smiled as she began painting the glue to the hair.

"It's the one Lily picked in Vegas. She said I looked like a young Waylon Jennings."

He tilted his face back as Shane pressed the mustache under his nose, tickling his nostrils with misguided hairs.

"Yeah, I can see that." As it dried, he let his face fall back down again, stroking it on purpose to frighten Shane. To which she only replied, "If Waylon ever starred in a 70's porn film, _maybe_."

He laughed and shuffled around on the counter for his smokes.

"You want a beauty mark too, '_Oh great_ _Watasha'_?"

"No. Give me my Stetson and I'll be good to go."

Shane reached for the black cowboy hat across the counter, toyed with the feather on it for a minute and then tossed it in his lap. He propped it on his head, stood tall in his shiny black boots, all black suit, with a sterling silver bolo tie on his neck, that insane mustache, aviators and a ten gallon hat. She couldn't help but to laugh at him.

"You put Billy the Kid to shame, bro."

He gave a twisted smirk, tipped the front of his hat in the direction her perfume was wafting from, and whispered with a husky twang, "Thank you little lady." Then he adjusted the waistband of his pants, tucked both of his semi-automatics into the pockets of his dress jacket, and aimed for the doorway he could sense by the noise from outside of it.

"Now if you don't mind," the western drawl concluded, leaving Shane breathless with laughter, "I've got me some Brooklyn hogs to tie up."

* * *

**Boston, MA – Jeff's Apartment**

_July 13th, 1994_

**

* * *

**

"_Ready?"_

_He could hear her voice echoing from the bathroom and could barely contain the need to get up from the bed, rip the door off the hinges and take her right there in the middle of the floor. But he held back, nearly punched his hardened pants just to keep control, and let her have her fun._

"_Ready, baby."_

_The knob on the door turned, creaked open to reveal only darkness within, and then from the jaws of the blackness, slipped out a single leg. Attached to this leg, was a single, strappy, silver stiletto. And while Jeff tried to repeat those details a hundred times over in his mind without letting his brain stutter, his eyes were caught in a whirlwind. _

_Lily's single leg caressed the doorway panel, making him altogether jealous of his apartment along with everything else she'd ever touched in the world. Her shoe hit the wood floor as she carefully slithered from out of the darkness, the silver sparkles of her thigh split dress, dancing everywhere in the moonlight of the bedroom. When he finally saw her face, it was half hidden by fiercely painted on red lipstick and a perfectly twirled blonde wig, making his cock jump with a hunger unlike anything before it. _

_And that's when she began to sing. _

"_Happy Birthday to you…"_

_She walked like grace and sex in a fist fight, clear across his bedroom. _

"…_Happy Birthday to you…"_

_Her hands roved over the skin tight sequins of her plunging dress in ways that made him sick with need. She stepped in front of the bed where his legs dangled off the edge and his fingers tingled with the ache to touch her. _

_Her hands rubbed his legs, reaching for the bulge she saw within his black dress pants. Her lips came within a centimeter of his, and with a pouty, twisty sort of whisper, she finally hummed, "…Happy Birthday Mr. President…"_

_He choked with a laugh when she winked at him through heavy makeup and then crawled onto his lap completely. Lily held his face and brought her lips down to his ear, concluding with a slide against his firm mid section. _

"…_Happy Birthday…to you." _

_He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as could be managed, pulled back on her face and brought her directly to his lips, sucking at the cherry flavored gloss until his were the same shade. Lily laughed at him even as he turned her over and tossed her into the middle of the bed, dress pushed out of the way, legs forced as far as they would go to allow his hips all the access they desired, and two 'strappy silver stilettos', grinding into his back. _

_Before he pulled his firm and dripping cock from his pants, he hovered over her mouth, never letting her eyes look away from his, and whispered softly._

"_Thank you, Miss Monroe. But…"_

_She giggled as he tore off the wig to reveal her flowing and spritzed curls, the ones she'd spent two hours working on just to take him out to a nice birthday dinner. _

"…_Can I have my girlfriend back now?"_

_Lily leaned up on her elbows to reach his mouth again. _

"_Come and get her."_

* * *

**Suite #1205 – 7:48 PM**

* * *

"Lily? You done?"

There was no answer, so he knocked again.

"Lil?"

"Just a second. One more pin."

Tom laughed and leaned on the doorway of the bathroom, trying to remember the night he'd driven home from Boston with Jeff so he could take her to prom. He tried to remember the night of her high school graduation, when he'd nearly fallen asleep waiting for her to finish doing her makeup. And then he remembered the night of her 21st birthday, two months before the world ended, when she had spent almost 6 hours getting ready, so that Jeff could carry her out of Flynn's with green cheeks anyway.

"Okay," she whispered as she turned the knob and walked out, catching him laughing over something. "What do you think?"

Tom could only smile, soundly. There wasn't much else he could do. Not with how she looked.

Her dress, the one she'd chosen faster than anything else he could ever remember before it, was a short cocktail dress, but no less classy for that matter. It was blue, but more than that, it was the same shade as the early evening sky outside. Everything plunged, same as the little black dress she'd worn back in Tampa, the one he'd never seen. The front was at ground zero, the back matched and all of it sent his head reeling, in the most respectful and protective of ways.

Tom knew he'd be on edge the rest of the night, watching her like a hawk.

Lily did a little spin and the curls in her dark hair danced on her shoulders with a bounce or two.

"Well? Am I mafia worthy?"

He chuckled and took her hand, twirling her a second and third time just for the effect it had on his melted heart. His little sister wasn't twenty-one anymore. She wasn't sixteen, or nine, or two anymore. She was a grown woman, right there, before his very eyes. It was as if he had blinked in the hallway of his mother's house, leaning on the bathroom door, waiting for her to get ready for her 21st at Flynn's, and everything had jumped to her 29th from there.

"Are you speechless, Tommy?"

Lily stopped spinning to look up at him, to admire him in his pressed tux, and saw a sparkling sort of glow in his eyes.

She gulped sadly, "You're crying."

"What?" He rubbed his eyes, "No. I'm not."

She knew, but didn't push it. Instead, she offered him a tissue from the bathroom and hugged him with a squeeze.

"It's okay. We'll get him and you can go back to rolling your eyes at me when I take too long."

He laughed and wiped his eyes, then tossed the tissue aside, hugged her quick once more and sat her down on the bed of the room as he went through the logistics of everything. He handed her a small handgun, and instructed her on how to keep it tapered in the leg holster he'd given her.

"Just make sure none of these pricks cops a feel at your leg, and you should be fine."

She half smiled and examined the gun, "When I use it, will it be loud?"

"No, it's a quiet little thing. As long as the door to the room is shut and you press it hard enough to their gut, it'll take care of business without alerting the Feds."

Lily nodded and slipped it into the holster under her dress. Then Tom handed her a familiar old sort of friend.

"This is so that I can hear--"

"Don't worry," she cut him off, took the bud and pinched it into her ear beneath her curls. "I'm well established with the inner workings of CIA communication."

Tom shook his head with a soft laugh.

"I'm just glad there's no camera this time."

"Oh God, they didn't?"

"Yeah," she chided with a fierce eye, "They did."

"Well, luckily you're spared tonight. I just need to hear you wherever you end up, so I know when to make the drop call."

"Drop call?"

"For my buddies across the street."

Lily looked at him kind of funny and he grabbed her hand, walking her to the huge wall length window, lending her a pair of binoculars.

"Down to the left, near the taco drive thru."

She followed the directions, scanning with the night vision specs and trying not to feel like she was in a movie.

"A little further left. Further. At the run down Texaco station."

Into her view came a huddle of identical black SUV's, same as the ones she'd grown so accustomed to as of late. She smiled, watching the men inside as they watched her in return with their own spyware. She waved, and shocking as it was, one driver gave her thumbs up with a smile, from 800 yards away on the ground.

"Okay, that's just freaky," she laughed as he took the goggles from her.

"That's my crew. They're the only ones who've known I existed for the last seven years. Good guys."

She nodded, glad at least to know he had_ some_ people surrounding him in this world.

"What do they do?"

"Well," Tom walked her back towards the other side of the room, "As soon as you take care of Tuzla's smaller rats--"

"Rod and Nicky."

"Right. As soon as they're finished, and as soon as I find out what room Jimmy's making his trade in, I'll let you know and you'll come find me there. When I see you're safe with me and I see that Shane is ready to make her bust, that's when I'll make the call to my guys at the station. They'll be kicking down doors in this place faster than you can say _Intelligence_."

Lily breathed deep with a nod.

"And Lil?"

Her gaze turned up to Tom's again, "Yeah?"

"Don't forget. He's not Jimmy around here. He's Freddy Braxton. You won't get anywhere at this little rendezvous with the name Tuzla. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good girl."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her quick on the forehead. She grabbed her purse from the bed, stepped into her 'strappy silver stilettos', and made headway for the door of the suite.

"You go ahead out, mingle, don't worry about being recognized, Tuzla's guys still don't know what you look like since you killed the henchmen he sent after you."

"What about the guys at the gas station?"

Tom shook his head defiantly, "Trust me. It was too dark and I covered you before they could see. All on purpose, for this reason."

There was a fearful sigh that came from Lily as she stepped to the door, Tom's hand firm on her back, leading her into the Hell he'd warned of. She wanted so badly to apologize for being so demanding of coming back like this, but when she tried, he stopped her.

"Tom, I know you didn't want me to--"

"Hey, hey, don't start that now. Didn't Jeff tell you anything about going into a sting operation with a clear head?"

"He did, but--"

"Lily, no. It's a waste of energy, I already know what you want to say."

"You do?"

He nodded, placed one hand on the doorknob and the second on her cheek, in that same brotherly way he always used to.

"I knew you weren't going to let me take you San Francisco. I knew it the whole time."

"What?"

"Yeah, I know you Lily. Come on, don't you remember that much at least? I know everything about how your mind and heart operates. I've seen it survive a hell's beating, whether you knew I was watching it or not. You were never going to let me make it beyond Barstow, I knew that. I was just testing you, throwing a little salt in your game."

She laughed, sucking back the need to cry and covered his hand on her cheek with hers.

"Next door is a guy who loves you, I know that. Shit, I was the first person he ever told."

Her eyes widened with a quivering lip.

"Jeff adores you and you know it. But he can't be two places at once, especially now, with his '_condition'_....He can't fight for you out there tonight, and protect you at the same time. It would be impossible. I knew that the minute I saw you both get blown away in that motel back in Vegas. I couldn't stand by anymore and watch you kill yourself for me, especially when I'm not even dead."

Her hand trembled where it was trapped with his fingers, squeezing and brushing her hair from her eyes.

"I snatched you from him to protect you, so that in the end, Shane could go out there tonight with the other guys and fight like hell for you, without worrying about losing you." Tom brought Lily into his chest, consuming her with one last hug, holding her like life depended on nothing more. "You're with me tonight, just us Hanson's. And we know all about love and battlefields. Don't we?"

Lily giggled with loose tears on his tux, squeezing him tight with a whispered nod.

"We do."


	37. Belle of the Felony Ball

**BELLE OF THE FELONY BALL**

**Rooftop Lounge – The Clarendon Hotel**

_10:15 PM_

* * *

Shane dropped her third empty martini glass to the bar and asked for another. Her eyes were drawn curiously across the rooftop deck, weaving in and out of bodies in search of just one that looked familiar from the list Jack had finally sent her through email, twenty minutes before leaving the room. There were none, only mingling crowds of leggy blondes and their cowboy dates. This wasn't a mafia party at all. It was a party in honor of Jimmy, supported by the local celebrity wranglers and housewives.

But there were still flourishing glass bowls of cocaine, gun holsters revealed in the twinkling lights left and right, and alcohol splashed around like rain in a drought. It was remarkable to her, that this was what Tuzla had spent the last eight years doing under an assumed name, all while he was one of America's most wanted men.

She scoffed at the thought and tore through another drink, listening to Carter, schmoozing Miss Arizona a yard or two away, and Jeff reading out room numbers to Andy from a separate, disclosed location at the pool just below where she was.

"_Rod Massino, he's Vic Amuso's nephew."_

"_The Vic Amuso?"_

"_Yeah, Loop. Do you know another one?"_

In her ear bud, Shane heard Andy gulp in frustration and open a door.

"_I'm in, give me a minute to wire it and then you can read the next one."_

"_Fine."_ Sands growled and she laughed. _"Shane, remind me again why the hell we're bothering with suite taps when we should be finding the trade location?"_

Turning from out of clear view, she sipped at her drink as she whispered to him, "These guys aren't drinking and snorting angel dust just for the hell of it, Jeff. They're after women. And one of them is going to end up using that room before the night is over. It's just precautionary and something for you to occupy your time with until I find the trade. Chill, would you?"

Her snap made him growl even louder and she shook her head at him, until she felt a warm hand on the bare lower back of her dress. Shane turned abruptly to see the smiling face of an apparently single looking Italian.

"Hi there, miss. This spot isn't taken is it?"

His gesture to the open piece of cement next to her at the bar, was a good line, but she'd heard better before. She knew the man's face instantly from the fax, and inside, was leaping in bounds for having caught one. _Finally, _she thought as she twisted her back against the bar.

"No," she answered sweetly with a flutter of her eyes, "It's free and clear."

"I'm Emilio."

"Emilio," she placed her hand in his as he kissed it. "I'm Kate."

"Kate or _Katie_?"

There was a soft, New York purr in his voice that made her want to ram her knee into his balls, steal his guns and money, and throw him into the pool. But she resisted, and played the part of a lonely, brunette musician at a drug induced rooftop party, quite well, if she did say so herself.

From down below at the pool, where Sands resided on a corner lounge chair, glasses on, hat tilted and boots kicked up, he too was gaining fair attention, all unknowingly of course. There was a tap on his shoulder, a soft tap, like that from only a woman, and he turned his face up to smell the alcohol and evening desert heat radiating from her skin. Her _wet_ skin.

"Hi," she pronounced with an outstretched hand that he quite obviously couldn't see. "I'm Tiffany. I don't think we've met."

He raised his hand despite it, thinking that she would eventually reach for his to shake, and she did with her dripping hand and long nails tickling his palm. Sands threw on his accent and went along with it.

"Nice to meet ya."

"What's your name?"

"Uh, Luke ma'am."

The girl, who sounded as if she were no more aged than twenty-three, sat down on his chair, suddenly intrigued by him.

"Why are you wearing sunglasses out here? It's nighttime."

_Oh great, _he thought with a teasing smirk, _she's a Harvard graduate just like Lily._

"I'm blind, ma'am."

She gasped then, like a child would, or a teenage girl who just ran into Brad Pitt.

"You're kidding," her tiny hands began to stroke his legs and hands, attempting to come off motherly instead of just like a drunken slut. "That's awful. You're so handsome though, I would have never known."

She began to pet his mustache, the one that would eventually fall off if it gained too much attention, and he moved his face away in defense when he heard Miles in his ear again.

"_Dude, need the next room number. Quick."_

"I'm sorry miss, but--" he raised his right hand, wiggling his fingers out close to where he could feel her breath, allowing for her to see the ring. "I'm married."

"Oh," she began, suddenly uninterested but sweetly defense all the same. "That's fine. Your wife is a lucky woman."

And all at once, from three different directions and locations, he heard simultaneous agreement with the sound of the girl's wet feet as she walked away.

"_That's right, bitch."_

"_He's taken, but I'll pretend to be blind for those tits."_

"_Keep it in your pants, man."_

This was one of those moments he wished he had eyes, even if just long enough to roll them and make his point firmly.

"We got a bunch of comedians on the line tonight, huh? For Christ sake…"

They all laughed and somehow returned to what they were doing and with whom they were doing it. Andy begged for the next room number again though, and while Sands assisted him with finding it out and tapping the room of rat #2, a Nicky Luchese, he sat twisting his wedding band on his finger, thinking about all the reasons that tall, half naked, wet blondes, did very little for him anymore.

* * *

**Pool Veranda – Two minutes later…**

* * *

With one leg hiked against another and the skirt of her dress draped high enough on her skin to tempt the coward sitting beside her on the patio canopy bed, Lily had slyly managed to keep an eye on her husband from clear across the pool deck. The Paris Hilton wannabe in the slinky pink bikini, had tempted him for about as long as it took her to finish off her third cosmopolitan.

One flat minute and no more.

"It can be a risky business sometimes, sure, but ya know, puts food on the table so to speak. Ya know what I mean, eh?"

Her attention was forced back to the slimy little Italian man at her side, softly stroking her knuckles where they rested on the mattress.

"I do, _absolutely_." She flipped the flirtation switch right back on, as she began playing with the buttons on his silk shirt. "I mean, I think it takes a real _man_ to put his life in danger every day. I just can't imagine."

He smirked down at her when she spread out, temptingly, teasingly almost. Lily moved her hand in between the button spaces on his shirt, shuddering at the feel of his overtly hairy chest beneath, but playing the game all the same.

"Where do you keep _your gun_, Nicky? Can I see it?"

With a twist of her curls on his jeweled fingers, he nodded and bit his lip for obvious reasons she could already feel grinding against her bare knee.

"What do ya say we go back to my room, Miss Lucy, and I'll show ya the _whole_ collection."

Lily licked her lips and slid down from the canopy bed with a taunting twist of her hips as she followed closely behind him, trying not to laugh when she heard Tom chuckling in her ear.

"_Dad would be horrified if he were here. He'd kill me himself."_

She wanted to reply back and say, '_Jeff said the same thing about you.' _But she was forced to save the comment for later, when they won this charade finally.

It didn't take long to get to Nicky's room. It was on the eleventh floor, one below where their suite was. While she stood waiting for him to open the door, she saw one young looking, distant man trip halfway down the hall and then turn back around from where he came on the elevator and run to it nervously. Part of her wanted to laugh, but she was led inside by Nick Luchese's fat, greasy fingertips before she got the chance.

* * *

**One minute earlier…**

* * *

In one ear he had Jeff explaining the quickest route to the eleventh floor of the hotel, and in the other, to calm his nerves as was usual, Andy had the bud from his iPod blasting Tom Petty. He was focused, shuffling into the elevator from the 10th floor, and with a single flick of the button, he shot right up to the next one.

"_It's straight down that hall, right out of the elevator. #1123." _

"Alright, I got it," he murmured back to Sands, trudging down the colorfully carpeted hallway.

He was halfway there, halfway between the lyrics of _Learning to Fly, _when he heard voices coming from the direction opposite him, a man and a younger woman. He tried to ignore it and stay calm, stay normal. But before he was within ten feet of Nicky Luchese's door, he saw none other the man in question, turning the corner of the hall in his navy blue silk shirt, with a slender, dark haired woman on his arm, wearing a barely there blue dress to match.

Andy bit his tongue as he shifted away on his dress shoes, somehow tripping over air, wires and that same colorful carpet. He wasn't sure if they saw him, or if they cared, but he was skipping right back down the hall toward the elevator when he heard the room's door click shut.

"Fuck. _Fuck_, man."

"_What the hell, Rookie? Are you running?"_

"He came back early. He's got a girl in there with him."

"_Jesus," _he heard Sands grumble as he pushed the button for the 12th floor inside of the elevator again, headed back to their suite. _"Ah fuck it, Fruit Loop. Let him have some fun with his little whore. We'll tap the other guys."_

* * *

**Eight minutes later…**

* * *

Lily stood in the middle of the room, twirling around with a shift of her hips back and forth every so often, as she sipped at a cold beer and swayed to _Chicago_ on the radio low. Nicky was relaxed on his couch, watching her, accepting the bulge in his pants as it grew firmer and firmer with every tipsy little twist her slim body made inside of her dress.

Eventually though, he couldn't resist any longer.

"Lucy, _in the Sky with Diamonds_," he teased as Lily stopped her movement and with a flirty grin, sauntered to where his hand was held out for her, "Come over here and show me how ya tango."

When her fingers curled within his, she felt a jolt of her body as the alcohol rushed in her veins, sending her flying directly into Nicky's lap on the couch. She laughed out playfully, keeping herself in check as far as seduction and secrecy went. She wrapped her legs around his lap, changing her weight every so often, trying to avoid the solid rock awaiting beneath her dress.

There was no way that was leaving its cage.

Nicky pulled her towards him, biting down harshly on her neck with revolting laps of his tongue over the wounds he created, all while she pretended to be dry humping him in an effort to get at the gun on her left hip. It was there, just an inch too far away to grasp a hold of.

"Little Lucy wants to dance all night, huh?"

His breathy, rum soaked laughter on her neck and breasts was more than she'd bargained for, and it made her reach that much farther, push herself that much harder to grasp the handle of the gun under her dress.

"Let me show ya how we do it in Brooklyn, my wild western, _ballerina_."

The man gripped her hips firmly, just as she managed to tug the gun from its holster. He was seconds away from turning Lily over to her back on the couch, pulling his aforementioned _'gun'_ free of all constraint and taking her as hard he could.

But she was quicker than Nicky Luchese. She had trained with the best in America. She was Thomas Hanson's daughter and this gave her all the advantage she needed.

Nicky's mouth was a simple inch from hers when he stopped at the intrusion against his gut, the barrel of his _Little Lucy's_ gun. His eyes widened for all of a second, he gulped, and that's when she made her move.

"I want you to tell me where in this building, your boss Freddy is making his weapons trade."

She watched carefully as the older, fatter, plenty uglier man's eyes bulged further, his hands trembling from her hips as the gun poked his ribcage, somehow.

"This bullet is going to blow right through your liver. And you will _bleed_ to death, right here, _alone_, if you don't tell me where Freddy is trading the money for the guns."

He said nothing, in the purest of shock, but Lily was fair, and she gave him one more chance.

"Tell me, Nicky. Save yourself."

This time, through gritted teeth and popping vision, he shook his head and gave her all the reason she needed to let her shaky finger react against the trigger.

And it did, swiftly so.

Tommy was right about the sound of the fire, it was barely audible unless you were directly over it like she was. The bullet grunted the same as Nicky when it spun from the pin barrel and whirred through his gut, taking his liver for all its was worth, just like she had promised.

Lily wasn't sure how she felt when it happened, except to say that she felt slightly sick to her own stomach watching him bleed to death on that couch, and on the other hand, she felt entirely too relieved for words. It was one man down, leading her off to the next, and eventually, to the man who would provide her brother freedom with his own well dug grave.

She sighed, returned the gun to safety, tucked it into the holster at her leg, and then quickly and quietly snuck out of Nicky Luchese's room, dabbing at the tiny blood stains on the front of her dress. Lily took the elevator to the 12th floor again, hoping to avoid anyone from Shane's posse at best, until she could get to her and Tommy's room and change into her next disguise.

She was nearly there when she heard Tommy whisper in her ear, _"Halfway done, monkey."_

* * *

**Four minutes earlier…**

* * *

While Shane worked her magic on Mr. Emilio, sole heir to the Tuzla fortune due to his lack of sons, Carter teased and tickled Miss Arizona (ex-girlfriend to Tuzla's brother in law) right into another two margaritas and Miles was losing his mind in the suite, attempting to unravel and aide the now broken wire taps from the hallway below.

Jeff was sitting idly somewhere in his head, sighing and drinking one too many beers to be as close as he was to the University of Arizona cheerleading squad, all clad in bikinis. It was the wrong place for someone like him, a victim, a blind man with a reason to be coddled by anything with breasts and long legs.

But it was the furthest thing from any of their minds. Shane had convinced Emilio Sandino to take her for a spin in his mock father's room, since he promised that 'Freddy' would be downstairs making deals in the Polo Club balcony suite for the rest of the night.

That was the slip up she'd waited for. They had their new lead.

From the bathroom of Emilio's, or rather Tuzla's suite only minutes later, she directed the traffic of her posse.

"_Andy, screw the wires. It doesn't matter. I want you to go get Jeff and bring him down to the Polo Club in the lobby."_

She heard Miles grunt but eventually agree. _"And Carter. If you can hear me above all that noise, take Miss Arizona to a room before she falls and breaks her goddamn neck. Then meet us in the lobby."_

She heard two loud coughs as his coded response between Sands' chuckling, and then when she was content with the way things had turned out, she tossed the bud to the counter and spun back on her black stilettos, headed into the bedroom again.

_Poor Emilio, _she sighed wickedly with a smirk and fingers dancing over the gun at her upper hip, beneath the flowing black silk and all, _he never saw it coming. _

* * *

**12 minutes later…**

* * *

With one hand firm on Sands' arm, Miles lead him through the scours of half naked women with beautiful 'pom poms' on the pool patio, and back inside of the hotel. They walked from the end of the long hallway on the 10th floor, to the elevator at the mid section of the hotel, and then rode it up to the 12th floor once again, so that they could collect their guns and ammunition for the first time that night.

Sands shuffled around on one of the beds, rifling through the insane plethora of weaponry Shane had toted in from the emergency exit of the hotel earlier in the day. There were rifles, handguns, and even two shotguns. He wasn't sure how they'd managed to continuously collect this much shit, but it was there for the taking, and he was glad for at least that much.

He felt out two identical semi-automatics and tucked them into his double breasted holster, then threw his suit jacket back on, with a few minor accessories of his own to boost the ensemble. Even with a mirror, he was sure, through his wandering isolation of mind and alcohol that he looked like a serious badass. And he told himself this, over and over while he waited for Miles to finish packing his heat however he could.

"Can you fucking hurry, Rook? Tuzla isn't going to care if you wear lipstick for him or not."

Andy sneered and tugged on Sands' hand, throwing open the door of the room with nothing but fierce determination, especially after having lost one room on the taps list.

"Calm down, Geek Squad. You're starting to turn into me," Sands' chuckled as Miles pulled him out of the room and into the hall, never noticing the woman slipping into the room just next door. The woman in the blue dress from the 11th floor.

As he stood there though, waiting on Andy with his nifty bag of tricks, Sands could have sworn that he smelled something familiar wafting in the air. It was pungent, but sweet, almost like candy but even better, like spices. He sniffed at the air in certainty that he looked like a fool, only to come to the conclusion that it wasn't the perfume of any one of the bouncing pair of tits walking up and down the halls throughout the evening.

"Do you smell Chanel in here or is it just me?"

Andy rolled his eyes, refusing to answer, and tugged on Sands' arm as they stumbled towards the elevator again, headed for the lobby.

* * *

**35 seconds earlier…**

* * *

With a worried swagger of sorts, Lily ripped her silver heels from her feet and tore out of the elevator as it rung for the 12th floor again. She hurried along the soft carpet, keeping her eyes peeled for Shane, for Carter, Jeff or Miles, any of them. They all seemed to be elsewhere, or least safe inside their room, so she slowed her pace and took a breath.

"_I'm heading into the Polo Club downstairs, Lil. I'll see if Tuzla's hanging around in there and update you on what I find."_

With another deep breath and baby steps towards the door of their suite, she replied quietly, "Okay. I'm heading back up to the roof to find Rod. I'll see what I can get from him."

"_That's my girl, stay safe."_

She smiled and took one more step towards suite #1205, theirs, when she began to speak to him, "Don't worry, I will--"

Her last word came off as a desperate choke when she saw the door to suite #1206 fly open as someone fell out laughing.

"Calm down, _Geek Squad_. You're starting to turn into me."

Jeff hit the opposite wall chuckling as Andy too turned out of the room, at the exact moment that Lily's swipe card went through her own door and her hand jiggled to allow her access back inside for safety. As soon as her door was shut and locked, she fell against it, breathing heavily and listening intently as she heard his voice from under the doorway.

"Do you smell Chanel in here or is it just me?"

Before there was a response from Andy, they were only footsteps as they moved away.

* * *

**29 minutes later…**

* * *

There was nothing to do but sit and wait. Wait for Carter to finish seducing Miss Arizona right under the sheets where she belonged. Wait until Shane had taken complete care of Mr. Emilio and his runner-up balls to the throne of Jimmy's Kingdom. Wait and see when their opportunity would come spiraling down and grant them the right moment to break up Tuzla's little cocktail contract party in the opposing room of the Polo Club.

They sat there, Sands and Andy, bored, tired and counting as the seconds ticked on without them. Eventually, at least for someone with an unstable capacity for silence and monotony like Sands, it would become too much and he would have left.

That was, if hope hadn't arrived in the form of an innocent and tipsy giggle from inside both of their heads. They weren't dreaming, they knew it when they both perked up in the corner booth seat, Miles' staring wildly at Sands and Sands smirking with a twist. It was entertainment for any man, _finally_.

"It's coming from the taps in Massino's room."

"Good ole' _Hot Rod_, huh?" Sands teased, focusing on the voices more closely. "Let's see what he's packing."

Andy laughed as they both sat listening. It was easy to do, with Shane having abandoned her earpiece altogether and Carter working so quietly on his beauty queen lay, that there were only whispers of words and sheets to block out the more interesting giggles and stumbling words from Rod's room.

"_So, what'll it be Miss Isabelle, a Martini? You look like a chocolate martini kind of girl."_

There was another sugary sigh that made both of their pants tighten from under the table.

"_That sounds nice. Although, I'd rather have a chocolate covered Rod."_

They choked on their own tongues in laughing at the sound of the girl's voice, the tangy, Western desire dripping right off of every syllable she mouthed deep in the confines of their minds.

"_That can be arranged, I think. Shall we skip the martinis then?"_

"_Please. Let's not waste time."_

"_Desperate are ya, sweetness?"_

"_Desperate for a man like you."_

There was a brief moment, where Sands felt something well within his heart as he listened to the woman that one of their enemy's had grown so fond of. There was something suddenly, in the way she let her words fall loosely in the throes of passion, in the reaction of another man's body to hers, and with the falling high of too many cosmopolitans in the moonlight.

There was something.

"Can you believe this cheesy mother fucker, man? He's got your game beat, that's for sure."

Sands ignored Andy for the voice of the young girl, obviously too young to be cavorting with a righteous 50-something bastard like Rod Massino.

"_Can I borrow this?"_

A grunt and a deep chuckling growl later, and they both heard the whipping of a belt being removed from pants, then tossed against a wall or table.

"_Relax Mr. Massino…this won't take long…"_

Sands' found himself gulping for no other apparent reason than the way the girl's voice continued to haunt his mind, since that's the only thing he could see. He couldn't see Andy in front of him, or the cocktail waitress leaving him a fresh beer with a smile. He could only see the girl, lost somewhere in a tangle of clothes and bed sheets with a man who wasn't him.

He hated that.

And when she spoke again, he knew exactly why.

"_I'm going to make you wish you were dead…"_

"_Ooh, I bet you are. You naughty little rodeo Belle. Go on, ride me!"_

He shot straight up in his booth seat, a sweat breaking out on his forehead from under his hat as he tore it off to the table, breathing heavily.

"Jeff? What the hell's wrong, man?"

He sucked in air tightly as he heard the wet kisses to skin in his ear, wet kisses to skin that wasn't his.

"I told you I thought I smelled Chanel upstairs. _Chanel Mademoiselle_," he mumbled cautiously, wiping the sweat from his brow and nose.

"So?"

Sands reached across to blindly grasp at Andy's shirt, pulling him close to his angered breathing, no different than he had in the truck that same morning.

"_So_, don't you hear that, the girl? Jesus, Rookie…"

"Sands' what?!"

He pounded his fist on the booth table, grunted and bit his lip before concluding under his breath.

"That's my wife."


	38. Love is a Battlefield

**LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD**

**Rod Massino's Suite – 11:15 PM**

* * *

"I'm going to make you wish you were dead…"

Rod breathed huskily and stretched out beneath Lily's straddling hold.

"Ooh, I just bet you are. You naughty little rodeo Belle. Go on, ride me!"

She giggled and tied each of his hands with the ribbons from her braided hair. With her hips grinding against the ache at his bulging jeans and her hands firm on his chest as she groped and teased every bit of him over his clothing, Lily hardly noticed the sound of someone screaming in her ear, as if from a short distance. Whoever it was, they were close enough to where her brother was to be picked up on the ear bud.

"Why don't you give an old mafia man a run for his hard earned money, _Miss Dixie Stampede_."

Lily smiled down at Rod Massino with a biting smirk and then ripped open his shirt without concerns for any of the hand-sewn satin buttons. He growled with sweet anticipation of what was to come next, never wondering for one second why one of Lily's hands had disappeared from his chest. She reached for the handle of her gun, made a little easier this time, in this position, and the second she had pulled it from the holster she heard Tommy's voice soft in her ear, but demanding just the same.

"_Lillian, finish Massino off. Do it fast and meet me down here in the lobby, at the Polo Club. I think we've got a problem."_

She wanted to know the problem, but realized that the only way she would ever find out, would be to get rid of Rod Massino first. She was kind to him in the process, all things considered, and even gave him a stimulating sort of massage below, while her free hand trained the barrel of her handgun on his neck.

He jilted a little under her body at the touch, knowing all too well what it meant for him.

"I really hate to do this, but you've been dealing with all the wrong guys Rod."

"D-don't p-please," he choked out under the grazing gun's open point. "Isabelle, please."

"My name isn't Isabelle. It's--"

"_Lily, let's go!"_

At the sound of Tommy's insistent begging, she let the trigger slip wearily under her finger, and watched as it sliced through his jugular, stemming off the carotid artery to spray blood from one side of the white cotton sheets to the other as she fell back from its range. She could hear him gargling for air for all of a second or two, before finally choking on breath alone, and dying a mere two feet from her on the mattress.

She swallowed hard to keep from gagging and then tucked the gun back into her thigh holster, safety on and her heart pounding with the sound of Tom's silent shouting.

"_I need you down here with me safely before I can make the call, Lily. Shane and Jeff are already in the lounge here. Hurry up!"_

With one last deep breath, she murmured, "I'm coming. I'm coming," as she stumbled in her fancied cowgirl boots to the door of the room, forced her way back into the hall again, and leapt into a sprint for the elevator. Somewhere in the midst of running, she realized that her gun had detached itself from the holster and was nowhere to be seen down the hall. There was no time to bother with it though, not when everything was on the line finally. She wouldn't need it, not with what Tommy had promised would be the result of the evening. It wouldn't be her fighting.

So she just ran, like a murderous Cinderella, vying for her armored pumpkin carriage and blind Prince.

* * *

**One minute later…**

* * *

"What are you even talking about? You're losing your mind."

Sands shoved back on the booth's table, sliding out to stand, just as Shane grabbed his arm and tore him into the lobby herself anyway. She wasn't about to risk Tuzla's 'meeting' being interrupted by the man who he had wanted to kill alongside Tommy eight years before.

"I know what I fucking heard, Shane. I know I heard her, _IN_ his room, _Massino's_."

She shook her head up at him, not understanding his awkward claim.

"Lily's not here, Jeff. She's in San Francisco. What is going on with you all of sudden?"

He gulped with a heavy breath, practically pulling his hair from their follicles as he stumbled back and forth blankly, counting steps between the lobby's empty seating area and the front doors of the hotel itself. It never once appeared odd to any of them, that the check in desk, along with the Club (save for one waitress), was completely deserted. That wasn't hotel standard usually.

But Shane could hardly think to notice with the way Sands' paced in the bowels of pure insanity.

"Jeff, you're just strung out, you miss her. You imagined it--"

"No I didn't," he snapped back at her, throwing his hat clear across the lobby. "It was her. I think I know what my own WIFE sounds like. Especially, under the goddamn circumstances you all have put her in without bothering to tell me!"

"What circumstances? What are you talking about?"

"You lied to me, Shy. She was here, the whole time, working the case with you."

Shane was simply amazed at his wild imagination.

"Lily's not working the case with me, or Carter or Andy. She's not here, Sheldon."

With her hand soft on his shaking shoulder, she attempted to calm him down enough to re-focus the situation at hand, and probably would have done a bang up job of it, if all her concentration on her brother hadn't been broken by the sound of a smacking boot heels on the glossy tile floor of the lobby.

Her eyes darted off to where a young woman tumbled down the main stairwell in pink cowgirl boots, dark pigtails flying in her face and a strange sort of western rodeo dress all she had to cover her body. Sands' head turned with the noise as well, but without vision, he could only rely on his other senses. Thankfully, so.

Something struck his nose even at the far distance and Shane cold feel his muscles tense under his suit jacket where she held onto him.

"That's her," he mumbled with a grunt as he pulled away from her hands and started stumbling in the direction the young woman was coming from. "I know it's her. I can smell her perfume. Lily?"

Shane and Andy watched as the girl in question stopped immediately in her tracks, heaving for breath as Sands wandered ever closer to her.

"Lily?" His hand was outstretched towards her, begging her to touch him, to acknowledge that he was right in knowing it was her. But she stood absolutely still, hopeful that something magical might happen, that maybe it was a dream. "Lillian, answer me!"

He was angry, well on his way to being drunk already and tired looking, as if he'd done nothing but think about her for the last 40 hours. Lily felt tears coming to her eyes when he finally stumbled in front of her, his hands reaching her shoulders as he gained firm grounding. Still though, she said nothing.

"_Lily_," he whispered quietly, harshly, as he let his hands wander over her neck and face. "It was you on the wire tap, in Massino's room."

Nothing but silence he could easily drown in.

"Talk to me," he shook her as her tears fell onto his boots below, "Tell me why you're here, Lily. Why the hell did you lie to me? Did Shane tell you--"

"No," she finally cut him with a firm defense. "Shane had nothing to do with me coming back."

"Then who the fuck did? That Smith guy?"

"There is no Smith. There never was."

He stopped for a moment, almost positive about what he was going to hear next. Just like before, just like with Ajedrez. He was sure she was going to kiss him softly on the lips, then reveal to him that she was working for his enemy all along.

But would that make any sense? A Hanson fighting on Tuzla's side?

"I wanted to tell you everything. I still want to," she whispered with deep sobbing. "But I can't, Jeff. I don't have any choice. You can't know everything that I--"

"Yo guys."

The source of the interruption was found when they all turned to see Carter skipping out of the elevator. He approached them, even as Lily wanted to turn and explain everything to Sands, and even as he wanted to ignore what might have been and just kiss her. But nevertheless, Danny Carter was their prime delay on all things necessary.

There was a single moment of ambivalent silence, where Carter turned his face down to see Lily staring right back at him, and he smiled like a crazed nut.

"Shit, Lily why the hell are you--?"

And then, before she could speak or he could finish or anyone could think to move, that single moment of bliss and epiphany, was blasted away by the coppery zing of a close range firearm as it loosened a bullet and was sent flying directly through the middle of their pow-wow.

Lily screamed before any of them bothered to turn and see the source. Jeff hit the ground before he could grab a hold of her waist and protect her with him. Carter somehow managed to run and throw himself over the long oak top of the lobby's check in desk. Shane and Andy, together, were able to hide in a separated section of the Polo Club, using a table as their only source of barricade or battle trench.

In a matter of seconds, like in the movies, bullets were flying left and right, from handguns, machine guns, rifles and pistols alike. It was a first round test, merely to see who could survive to find out where the source of the original fire was coming from.

Although, they all knew.

Somewhere in the midst of gunfire, where Sands could hardly lift his head from the ground to contemplate shooting, let alone actually cock a gun and fire it, he instead listened to the sound of splintering oak finish, shattering glass from over his head somewhere, cracking marble tile at his sides and screaming from a distant location. He knew that scream though. It was the same one that had sounded the battle initially, the same one he'd heard the morning she was taken from him, bleeding and helpless.

That was his girl's scream and because he knew it, he found himself beginning to crawl in the line of all sorts of fire and flying debris, to get closer to that screech, the sound of that fear in her that he hated and altogether loved at once.

'_Keep screaming, baby.' _He pleaded with her as he dragged his body across the glassy floor. Sands' was sure he was bleeding, either from this battle or the pressure of landing on his existing wounds so harshly. And yet it didn't matter. Only one thing did to him, '_Scream Lily, help me find you. Just keep screaming…'_

"Jeff!"

That was his name. But it wasn't a scream and it wasn't Lily's voice. So he didn't stop when it told him to.

"Stay put, Jeff! DON'T MOVE!"

_Oh yeah right, _he thought,_ as if I'm going to obey you like a dog, Shy. I'm going to get her._

The crossfire was killing him, wearing down on every bit of his remaining senses. There were loud guns, weak guns, shouting for resistance, yelling for further murder attempts, pure chaos to add to his already sweltering mind. It wasn't until he heard bare hands on the tile floor from about ten feet away, due north of where he was hobbling on knees and palms, that he stopped completely and listened between the sound of triggers and bullets.

"Jeff, I'm coming!"

"Lily, no!" There was another voice. One more determined than she was, and he didn't like it. "Lily, get back here!"

"Let me go, please! I need to help him--"

Her voice was hushed by a hand over her mouth. But he could still hear her mumbling and desperate crying. Whoever was trying to keep her quiet, wasn't doing a very good job of it, because only a moment later, when Sands felt a bullet refract on the steel heel of his boot, he also heard her voice again, louder, more defiant and closer than he could have dreamed up.

"Jeff, grab my hand! Please! Take my hand!"

He didn't know where her hand was, except _away_ from his. He reached, but found nothing but glass and chips of wood and tile. He crawled a foot closer and still found nothing.

"Lillian, NO! Get back here!"

"No, I have to help him! Tommy, stop!"

And right there, _that_ was the end of his semi-normal, semi-sensible universe. The name radiated through him, even after he felt the touch of her fingers against his, even after he felt the crushing weight of another man's boot on his arm where it attached to hers, even after he realized that the sound of breathing high above him in the center of the sudden silence, was the distorted breathing pattern of a man, a criminal, who had just been caught up on.

His enemy.

He felt Lily's delicate fingers slip away from his and he could only focus on the pain again then. The pain in his lower gut, the pain in his knee, the pain in his arm and his leg and his head, and anywhere else he'd ever been shot or cut or run over or poisoned or drilled or threatened while working for this great American institution they called INTELLIGENCE.

The _intelligent_ thing to do would have been to quit while he was ahead, way back in 1996, when he had the world on a fine string. When he had his best friend, and his girl, and his little sister and his adopted family, and his new town and new life. Back then, when everything was perfect enough to be a dream at any moment.

_Maybe I'm dreaming now, _he contemplated in the silence, the peace above him, _maybe that's what this is. Any minute now, I'll open my eyes and I'll be stretched out on a blanket in the sand, and she'll be there, smiling down at me with a kiss when I wake up. Yeah…_

"You might be blind, but I know you can hear me, you little prick."

He felt someone kick his motionless leg with harsh words. That wasn't Lily.

"Thought you'd get your pansy ass team together, Sands? Come after me again. What is this? Some kind of loosely planned retaliation?"

The man laughed, his worst enemy, his nightmare on too many lonely nights. He felt the man smack his face with the end of a long gun, startling him to focus at least on the words, and the sound of his gun then tapping the tile floor gently.

"You've got that sexy minx of a sister firing at me. You've got a kid, what is he, _twelve_, aiming a rifle at me? You've even got a crazy heroine back there behind the counter, offering you a helping hand in your time of desperate need. How_ sweet_…"

The mocking in Jimmy's voice resonated sickness in his stomach as he coughed up blood, not realizing how or why, but letting it come out anyway. Then he heard a snap of fingers over his head, heard a stomping of boots to the tile, and then heard the thing that he swore would send him to the grave faster than anything else at this point.

He heard that scream again, this time, echoing across the empty lobby, blood curdling and bone vibrating in motion. He tried to wriggle against Tuzla's boot, but couldn't move and couldn't get to her.

"Look at you, you're halfway to the grave already. I may as well just put you down like a useless horse. You won't win me any money. I can't bet on you anymore, can I?"

There was another crunch of the bone in his upper arm as he grunted out with clenched teeth.

"Don't bother saving your energy to get to her. We're bringing your girl to you. Your _hero_…"

There was a shuffle of more boots, a whimpering that landed inches from him, on the floor at his side. He could smell her perfume, could taste her fear and feel her tears falling down onto his neck and chin.

"She is a pretty thing. What do you think boys?"

He was offering her up to his own posse, but there were only three pleasurable chuckles and sighs as response above him. He had envisioned Tuzla battling with more man power than that.

"Your girl is trembling in my hands, Sands. _Here_," he taunted, taking Sands' hand and pressing it to the space over Lily's heart, where it beat furiously, pumping like mad against his palm, murdering him with wretched thought alone. "She feels like she's scared, huh? Scared that she might die because of you. Scared that I might know who she is, after all. Scared that she might have to sit right here at your side, and watch as I _slowly…_" Jimmy began to slide the sharp edge of a blade down the side of Sands' face, his neck, then down his chest as it slightly cut through his dress shirt, "…cut you into pieces."

Sands let his hand fall from Lily's chest when she began to shake uncontrollably, stirring only worse images into his head.

"I don't know. Maybe I should let all of your friends watch while I cut _her_ to pieces instead. And I'll let you lie right there, and just_ listen_. Listen to the sound of metal searing her soft flesh," Sands could sense the blade pricking at Lily's skin as Tuzla spoke, "You'll be able to hear everything. The sound of her organs failing one by one. The sound of her blood trickling onto the floor, pooling all around where you are, motionless, unable to stop it. Then I'll let you listen to the sound of her heart as it hits the marble floor."

There was a choking sound above him, like lips to the palm of a hand. It was Lily, ready to vomit, ready to give in.

"We'll see if a heart really does stop beating once it's removed from the body. What do you say? Want to experiment for a while? You've got time, eh?"

He struggled against the hold on his arm, on his legs too. He tried to move his face away to stop the heated pain of Tuzla's words, of his breath on his face. He listened to the sound of a stronger man than him, carrying Lily off from the ground where he was stuck. He heard her whimpers, her vile breathing, leading him to wonder the worst of things.

And then somewhere, at an unimaginable proximity, on his own hand, his other hand, the free one, he felt that present coolness twisting about on his finger. Gold. A promise. It was an oath.

"_In sickness and in health_," he mumbled breathlessly as Jimmy laughed above him.

"In sickness and in health? Practicing for your 72 virgins?"

Sands spit out more blood onto his suit, uncaring whether it ended up there or not.

"Leave her alone. She has nothing--" he hacked more, his glasses finally falling off his face completely to reveal his scars to the surrounding men, "—Lily had nothing to do with this."

"Oh no? Lillian Hanson, younger sister to Thomas Hanson, CIA psychologist, 29 year old revenge seeker. You're telling me she's an innocent cocktail to this soiree of mine? How many of my men am I going to find dead in their rooms upstairs? Huh?"

He said nothing. This was the part where he himself was lost as to how she ended up as a disguising mafia assassin.

"She's here to raise that _stupid_ cop brother of hers from the dead. Isn't that right, _sweetheart_?!" He shouted overhead, back towards Lily, who had nothing to say. "She crashed the party, no different than you. She seduced my two best moles into their rooms, drank their alcohol and then blew their fucking brains out. Sounding familiar to you yet,_ Jeffery_?"

"What? What are you fucking talking about?"

Jimmy grunted with a snap of his fingers and rose on his boots.

"Watch this asshole. Don't let him up. And you princess," Lily felt herself being tugged at first by her braided pigtails, and then she was lifted into Tuzla's strong arms and carried off in the direction that Shane, Andy and Carter had all been in at one point. "Oh _Shanie_, darling?!"

There was no response, only silence, as Jimmy carried Lily around with him, his thick hand covering her mouth as he looked over countertops, down lobby corridors and under destroyed tables in the lounge. But there was no one.

"Shane Sands! You're not going to get very far. Did I fail to mention…" he paused and shifted around on his boots, just as Lily heard the chiming bell of the distant elevator in the silence. "…that as of 11:08…I own the hotel, baby cakes!"

There was a swish of metal doors. There was a single cock of a gun, then another, and another, until Tuzla had completely spun around with Lily in his arms to see three bodies emerging from the elevator. He watched with Lily struggling and screaming in his arms, as they came back into the center of the destroyed lobby, each of them pointing a gun at one of Jimmy's men, who in turn, drew guns on them the same.

"You bought this hotel, Jimmy," Shane smirked as she stumbled closer between where he stood with Lily and where the man standing above Jeff on the floor was. "And you didn't think to ask about what kind of fire exits it offered guests first?"

"Guests? Try intruders."

"Oh no," she teased wildly, playing with the trigger of her rifle, "We're paying customers. And if this is how you plan on welcoming all of your guests, _man_, this isn't going to be a very popular place of lodging."

Tuzla just grinned at her, squeezing Lily tighter, although she squirmed to get away.

"Let her go."

"What for?"

"Equal combat."

"Ha," he chuckled as he walked back around through the alley of aimed guns, to where Sands laid unmoving, practically bleeding to death. "Don't you know yet Shanie?" He dropped Lily down to the floor, half falling on top of Jeff in the process, before Jimmy stood to block them from view again and stare into the barrel end of Shane's gun.

"Love is a _battlefield_, baby."

She clenched her teeth together, aiming ever more forcefully towards him. Carter had a gun trained on two of Tuzla's men, and Andy on the last. Lily though, clinging to Jeff on the floor, trying to keep focusing on his breathing, his heart beating still, couldn't figure out where Tommy had disappeared to. Part of her wanted to believe that maybe she had gone insane like Jeff, and that maybe he was never there at all, that perhaps she'd concocted this elaborate scheme to help Shane all on her own.

Maybe Tom really was dead.

"We're equal now. Sands' is down, blind as a fucking bat, and more than ready to say his farewell." Jimmy stepped aside only an inch so that Lily could look up at Shane with teary vision and pleading eyes. "Agent Carter over here is more than capable of dueling it out with my new guys. Your Rookie has a good enough handle against Pauli over there. And then here we are. You and me Shane. This is what you always wanted, your own case. Your own takedown."

"I want you dead."

He laughed out loud, "Join the club. Get in line. Take a number."

Then, from out of the crowd, like a great omen, or irrepressible spirit, or worse, an _oppressed ghoul _at the center of the agency's brains, came the voice of reason. Finally.

"Now serving number four, Jimmy."

Lily couldn't see him, but she knew. And something in the way Jeff stirred beneath her hand, told her, that somehow, against all his sanity, he knew then too.

There was a gun facing the scene, a hand attached to it from over a high wall near the front doors of the hotel, but there was no face, no mold.

"Who's that? Another underage agent, come to play bullet tag?"

"No," the voice bellowed loudly in an echo, "It's fate, come a knockin' again."

Jimmy was entertained by the looks of it. He was laughing in the face of danger, in the face of two guns raised in aim at him, without a single weapon residing in his own hands. Lily wondered if this was his overconfidence or his acceptance of eventual defeat. Either way it seemed odd.

"There are 60 Federal cars waiting outside for you, Jim. They're putting on a light show and everything, their overjoyed to finally be meeting you. Either way, you're leaving this hotel dead, _tonight_. Whether it's under a white sheet or chained to a bench in the back of a white truck, that'll be your choice."

There was a sigh, but not of fear, more so of wonderment at the shouting voice.

"What a lovely speech that was, John Wayne," Tuzla began to applaud as his goons laughed around him and overhead of Lily, taunting her only hope. "Come now, let us see your charming face, the face of a hero. Or, maybe you can provide us with a bullet finally. Get this little party of ours started down here. What do you say?"

A single moment of silence passed by, like it had so many times already. But this one was different, this one was commanding, suddenly ready for war. Lily saw an old blue cap poke out over the ledge of the wall Tommy was behind and she gulped, before she heard three separate shouts ring out in the general direction of the hat.

It didn't move though. It remained still.

And that's when she, and only she, saw a half dozen fingers poke out from around the end of the wall closest to where Jimmy stood, aimlessly looking towards the unmoving hat.

It was one second. Like a strike of lighting. Like a heartbeat. And then, one shot.

"Ah, fuck!" It was Tuzla screaming in front of her, and it was his blood that was covering the floor in an instant, his bone protruding from his pants leg as he tumbled down to the ground on his knees, with wavering balance.

When Lily's eyes moved from the blood pooling at Sands feet from Jimmy's leg, they moved only to Shane once, before she heard the sound of a bullet from directly next to her ear. It was from a gun she didn't know existed. It was in the hand of a man that protruded in mystery from the inside of his coat.

It was a third arm.

She thought she was dreaming it, but before she had the chance to wonder, she heard the battle ensue overhead. Lily fell against Jeff, trying to cover him, protect him from any more harm. And surprisingly, she felt him regain enough strength to turn over and cover her entire body instead.

There were a million bullets fired, at least. Each of them handled one of Tuzla's men, firing at whatever limbs they could, gaining the masked assistance of a specialized poltergeist, of a ghost, somewhere in their midst still. Tommy was around, Lily could feel him, every time she heard a large body fall, the body of one of Jimmy's men, she knew.

She counted them. ONE...TWO…THREE…

At three there was stillness. Peace. Nothing but the sound of her and Jeff's own breathing.

She looked up from under him to see scattered bodies. At first they were all unmoving, then one shifted and sat up. _Carter._ A second one grunted with pain in a leg and leant up. _Andy._ And a third, after the longest minute of Lily's life, crawled to weakened knees and coughed her way back to life.

Her sister. Her best friend. _Shane._

But in an instant, blocking her view was the bloodied face of a man. Lily screamed, all in time for Jeff to rise up and lift his gun in the general direction of where he heard the labored breathing, the choking of blood and the gurgling of bodily fluids. It was a dying man, a half killed enemy, but it wasn't done. It wasn't his job to finish. It wasn't Shane's or Carter's or Andy's job.

He patted the ground under him and behind, touching Lily's legs, waist, until he found her hand and pulled her closer. He placed both of her hands on the handle of the gun in his hand, his breath warm on her neck as she shivered in his arms, at the sight, at the pinnacle of her lifetime rivalry.

"Do it. He wants you to," Jeff whispered tiredly in her ear, holding her hands tightly over the gun, guiding her to pull the trigger. "He's waiting for you to finish it, Lily."

Shane and the guys laid scattered in their own distress, but ignoring the pain for the power of the scene in the middle of the floor. It couldn't have been longer than thirty seconds, the entire thing, but it felt like it could have gone on forever.

"_**I hope to God…that when that fucker is looking into the barrel of a gun this week, that you're the one holding the trigger back. That's what I hope."**_

"_**Where will you be?"**_

"_**Me?"**_

"_**I'll be right here, like this. Making sure you follow through. I'll be watching your back, kid."**_

"Shoot him, Lillian. Get Tommy back."

His voice in her head was rattling, almost the same as the gun when she finally forced her finger down on the trigger and watched the bullet fly through Tuzla's heart, sending him right back down to the floor for good.

And almost as soon as it was taken care of, almost as soon as the score was settled, the world set into place properly, Tommy running towards Shane and Carter and Andy for assistance, the Feds storming in through the already broken glass doors of the lobby, and almost as soon as Lily felt herself fill up completely again, she noticed Jeff's hands slide away from hers on the gun.

He hit the floor. Just like Jimmy.

"Jeff?"

She tried to shake him awake.

"Jeff, no. Jeff, stop it! Come back to me!"

She punched his chest, listened to the sound of his weakening heart, and felt only one thing before she cried and screamed herself into blackness with him.

She felt a kiss on the top of her head. That way that only Jeff Sands knew to kiss her in moments of utter endearment and pride.


	39. Please Come to Boston

**

* * *

**

PLEASE COME TO BOSTON

* * *

A racing blend of things rushed in and out of her cerebellum, in and out of her line of hearing.

"_She's doing well, ma'am. Aside from the already healing bullet wound we medicated, on her lower stomach, it's nothing more than a few scratches. We did have to remove a deep fragment of glass from her right arm, but nothing harmful. A few weeks with a bandage…"_

"_**The Bings have horrible marriages. They yell. They fight. And they use the pool boy as a pawn in their sexual games."**_

"_**Chandler, have you ever put on a black cocktail dress and asked me up to your hotel room?"**_

"_**No."**_

"_**Then you are neither of your parents."**_

"…_And it looks like we've got another full day of snow ahead of us. Make sure you bundle up and stay plenty warm out on the streets…"_

"…_**Don't let the sun…go down on me…I'm just another fragment of your life…to wander free…"**_

The mixing and washing of words and noises stopped, but it was only because Lily had forced herself to sleep again. There, in the darkness and quiet, there were only two things. One was her father, who sat in his chair, reading the morning paper and smiling from time to time. The other was Shane, who whispered words to her, words she couldn't understand but ones that sounded so sweet, so calm. Shane was smiling the same way, as if assuring her.

She wanted so badly to see Jeff, to make sure he was still in there, in the blank part of her alternate world, the one she had since created somehow. But he never showed his face, he never came in laughing or teasing her, he never came to hug her or kiss her or make sure she was alright. It was as if he couldn't, or maybe, didn't _want_ to come.

Hours passed like days, days like centuries where she was; in a cold bed, in a cold room, with no one and nothing, alone in the dark with her thoughts and nightmares. Lily waited to see if someone would come and help her, come and rescue her, but all the people who came, the ones with the needles and questions and medicine did nothing but worry her more. It wasn't that she was in pain physically, the bullet she remembered from her stomach in the Vegas motel hardly hurt anymore. And the stinging she knew she recalled from glass and falling debris was gone.

There was only the ache in her heart.

And it wasn't long before someone finally came to attempt fixing that too.

* * *

**Massachusetts General Hospital – Boston **

**January 29****th****, 2004**

* * *

It was freezing.

Her toes were like ice cubes when she wiggled them for the first time that morning. She shifted her legs under the tightly bound blankets of that same confined bed and let her eyes open one at a time to the light of the room around her. The sun was out, but the windows were fogged with ice and snow. She gripped the pillow closer to her, hugging it like an old friend, or a long lost lover.

There was the same sound of the same door but she didn't move. She was too concentrated on the way the snow flurries fell on the pane of the window, at a twirling angle, each of them like tiny little winter dancers.

"_Blue jean baby…pretty eyes…you married a music man."_

Things were coming back to her, from her mind to reality again. She could finally see Jeff, but only when her eyes were open, only when she was watching the snow and thinking of a million different things that couldn't come back. They were too far lost in her mind.

"_Ballerina, you must have seen her…dancing in the sand."_

He was there on the beach, down on Harper's Shore. He was smiling at her, winking and casting out a fishing line like her dad used to. And Lily was dancing, spinning in the white rock sand, kicking it up like snow in winter. It was just another day of skipping school for them.

"_Tiny Dancer, 1994 tour_…" she mumbled against her hand on the pillow.

A moment later she felt a hand on her back, on her shoulder, rubbing softly, begging her silently to turn and take notice of the probable healer. And so she did, very carefully, as if barely moving at all when she glanced over her shoulder to the opposite side of the bed. It was the face of her past, the face of victory in one respect or another.

"How are you feeling?"

He mumbled the same way she did, his chin in the palm of his hand, resting on the edge of the bed as he continued to stroke her back lightly.

"Lily, are you in pain?"

She just looked at him defiantly.

"What hurts?"

There was a simple shake of her lip as she drew it in with a bite to control the wave of tears that was building on the high crest of her mind. She relaxed into Tommy's eyes, the ones that were healing enough in their own respect, and she began to drift, like a piece of wood lost on the bay. Like a piece of glass, lost in the bottom of the ocean.

With a heavy, teary breath she whispered, "My head hurts."

"Do you want me to get the doctor for some--?"

"No," she choked through chalky coughing.

Tom sighed tiredly, a wreck just from having to sit by with the mother he hadn't seen in eight years, and wait for his only sister to get well. But it wasn't happening the way he had hoped.

"Lily," he reached out and took her hand, brushing over her knuckles softly. "Doctor Camden says you can go home whenever you're ready. Mom and I want you to come back home with us, back to Chatham. You shouldn't be alone in D.C."

She was breathless as he spoke, wondering too many things to even speak. She wanted to know how many days it had been. She wanted to know what her mother had done when she had seen her _'believed-to-be-dead' _son walking towards her again after almost a decade. She wanted to know where Shane and Jeff and the guys were. She wanted to know that things weren't as bad as they felt. But she had a feeling that 'bad' was only the surface.

"We'll take care of you. Just say the word and you can come home, okay?"

Her eyes shifted back and forth from the doorway to Tom then to the snowy window again, before she finally just whispered out, "Tell me what you're really saying."

"What?"

"He's dead," she snapped back at him. "I can't go to him. So, _you're_ going to help me get over my dead husband."

Tom gulped and held her hand tighter, "Lily the doctors haven't said--"

"Oh right, like I'm going to believe a bunch of doctors. I am one. I know he's dead. I felt him die in my hands, Tommy. Don't lie to me--"

"I'm not lying, we don't--"

"Fine," she turned back over to face the window instead of him. "Don't then. I already know."

In silence they sat together in that room, while Debbie Hanson watched from the window of the door, too afraid to go near the situation. She had a son back after eight years, one she swore she'd buried. She had a daughter who was a survivor of a CIA battle and a potential widow like herself. She couldn't move the door beyond touching the handle.

From inside, Tom could do nothing more than reach out and touch his sister's arm and back gently, when he heard the desperate crying from her turned position. He knew it was probably only the start. The gates had only just opened again.

* * *

**Nantucket Sound – Cape Cod**

**April 16****th****, 1994**

* * *

"_Lily, tighten the halyard around the winch!"_

_His shouting above the wind confused her and she turned back to give him a worried smile at the helm of the yacht. She lifted the rope in her hand and shrugged at him._

"_This?"_

_He laughed wildly and nodded, "Yeah, tie that on the little silver thing over there, baby!"_

_She looked to where he pointed and then hurried and did as she was told, wrapping the rope around six or eight times. Lily grabbed hold of the rail to keep a firm balance as the boat rocked against the waves of the coming storm. She was still learning, more and more as Jeff took her out onto the water with his dad's sailboat each weekend. And it made him proud._

"_I need you to make sure the mainsheet is tight too. The one right here," he pointed to the closer of the two sails where he was and she carefully inched her way across the wet deck, "Just pull as hard as you can."_

_She brushed her long hair out of her eyes and grasped the line that was flapping around in the wind, her fingers burning as she tugged on it, teeth clenching to make Jeff laugh even louder as he turned the boat over to port side, drifting in a tumble towards the bay._

"_You got it?"_

"_Got it," she yelled back at him tiredly. _

_He spun the wheel in a flash, making the sails dance under her weakened hold. _

"_Okay be careful, make sure you hold tight so that the boom doesn't come loose and--"_

_It was too late when he shouted it, too late when he warned her. One second was all it took for Lily's tiny arms to loosen the hook just enough on the mainsail, so that the boom wiggled free as he'd tried to tell her, and then come swaying in to smack her on the side of her face, like he'd hoped it wouldn't. _

"_Lily!"_

_She tumbled backwards, fingers shocked from the ropes and body crushed down into the middle of the idly wandering yacht. Jeff jumped from behind the wheel, letting it gravitate back to a sailing lull, and ran into the middle of the saltwater sprayed deck. _

"_Lily," he fell at her side, lifting her dizzied, half conscious head. "Lily, baby. Look at me."_

_He could already see the reddened spot on her temple where the boom had thrashed her face. _

"_Jeff," she mumbled weakly and he smiled as he stroked her hair._

"_You're alright, I got ya."_

"_It hurts."_

_He knew exactly what hurt, he could see the bump forming, but it wasn't his style to give into her so easily. Instead he teasingly whispered, "What hurts, your arm?"_

_She shook her head in his hand even as he leaned down and kissed her arm through his Boston PD sweatshirt. _

"_No…"_

_His free hand slid down her body further, "What then? Is it your stomach?" He lifted the sweater away and blew against her flat stomach with his tongue, licking her navel._

"_No, no…" she nearly cried with giggling as she held her head. "Ouch."_

"_Oh I know," he whispered, moving down even further to press his lips to the back of her knee, one of her most ticklish spots. He raised it up against the sea spray and nibbled at the crook of her knee as she threw her hurting head back and moaned in laughter. _

"_Stop it. STOP! Oh my GOD, it's not there!"_

_He raised his head and gently dropped her leg, before coming up to her face again. He held her in his lap as she stared up at him weakly, with a faint trace of humor left on her mouth. _

"_It's my head that hurts."_

"_Oh," he sighed softly and cradled her head in his hands as he leaned down to nuzzle her wet cheek, "And what a pretty little head it is." _

_He kissed her chin, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, and then the tenderized place where his terrible teaching skills would leave a three week long bruise and minor concussion. It would be one that only his more practiced skills of love could heal._

* * *

**Chatham, Cape Cod**

**Two weeks later – Valentine's Day, 2004**

* * *

"Mom," Tom rushed through the front door of the house, shouting as he went, trying not to trip, "Mom, where you are?"

"In the kitchen," she called back.

He hurried through the living room and dining room after the sound of her voice and made it to the archway of the kitchen just as he nearly dropped the contents in his hand, the contents that made Debbie Hanson shout when she shut the fridge door. With one hand over her heart and a bottle of milk in the other, she gasped with a heavy breath.

"What are you doing with, _that_?"

"I got him for Lily. Think it'll help?"

She smiled and shook her head, adding milk to her morning coffee.

"I guess there's only one way to find out, sweetheart."

"Where is she? Upstairs?"

Debbie sipped at her mug and pointed through the kitchen window facing the windy beach. Tom glinted out and saw a single Adirondack chair sitting twenty feet out near the water, with no visible body, but a blanket waving off the sides. He smiled and darted through the sliding doors to the deck, then down into the sand as his mother watched from the window.

Between the cold wind and tackling sand on his boots, Tom could faintly hear an old radio playing beside Lily's chair, spitting out the bittersweet sadness of The Beatles' _Yesterday. _It slowed his movement, bringing a lasting sigh before he landed in the freezing sand at her feet. She looked like she was asleep, but opened her swollen eyes and slowly turned to look down at him, only half there in reality. He could see straight through her, in a way that scared him.

"Lil…?"

She took a deep breath and changed her position in the chair with legs curled up under the blanket, her old blue coffee mug resting on her knee and her box of tissues falling off to the sand.

There was only a tired, achy mumble, "What?"

"I've got something for you, a Valentine's Day present."

Her eyes fluttered closed for a second, attempting to regain strength enough to peer over her knees and see the object of question that Tom raised to her face. It was a puppy, soft and black with patches of white here and there, and a painted bulls-eye that made her shortly grin as she reached out to pet its tiny face.

"He's a border collie. I found him at the Humane Society this morning. They said he's only five months old, still a baby."

Her brow twisted as the dog's tongue came out to meet her stroking palm. Lily fooled with his floppy, curly ears and smiled a little wider as tears fell down peaceably for once.

"He likes you."

"You got him for me?"

"Yeah," Tom laughed as the dog reached to crawl into her lap on the chair, "I thought it might help cheer you up some, give you some extra company. I know you couldn't have dogs back at your apartment in D.C."

The puppy stretched its nose out to kiss and sniff at Lily's neck, where her perfume lingered from the day before. She wasn't even sure why she still wore it every day. She didn't have an office to go to anymore, or patients to see, or anyone to impress. It was more or less a subconscious necessity to who she had been for so long, and most likely a way to remember someone else who had been as fond as the puppy was of lingering at her neck.

With a soft laugh and sniffle of tears she asked, "What's his name?"

"Oh well, they were calling him Lucky because they found him in a box out on the highway."

"Aw, that's awful." She wanted to cry even deeper from the very thought of it, merely because she'd gotten so good at crying again after all these years. She'd cried every minute of every day for two weeks, and she showed no visible signs of stopping. She scrunched the puppy's face and nuzzled her nose with his, "You poor_ Lucky_ thing."

"I actually renamed him for you."

Her eyes turned down at Tom in the sand, almost fearfully.

"Go ahead," he gestured as he hugged his coat tighter against the cold, "Look at his tag."

She did, carefully turning it over in her hand as she felt her heart drop ten feet further into the pit of her stomach where it had resided for too long already. Lily gulped, not nervously, but angrily.

"What do you think?"

Her fiery eyes met her brother's as she gently shoved the dog off of her lap and back into his.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't believe you."

Lily's lip quivered as heavier tears fell. She grabbed her blanket and tissues and coffee, and then stormed off down the beach as Tom tried to chase after her.

"Lily, what's wrong with it? I thought it was a great name for him!"

She was gone, inside of the house and upstairs by the time he pushed his way through the back door and into the kitchen's warmth again. His mom was blocking his way any further with her arms crossed and a wary eye on him and the dog.

"Thomas."

"I don't know what I did wrong. It's just a name. I thought she would love it."

Debbie walked towards him, stroking the dogs' ears playfully as she reached for the tag settled on his neck and collar. She turned the silver engraving over into the light of the kitchen and sighed.

"Honey," she looked up at her son's face, patting it in that motherly way they had both missed for too many years. "I don't know if naming a puppy after your sister's nickname for Jeffery was such a good idea."

"Come on though," he teased, holding the dog up with a shake and tickle of his stomach, "Doesn't he just look like a _Sparky_?"

Debbie laughed, unable to help it, and nodded assuredly.

"We'll wait and see how she takes it. You know Lily, she loves dogs. She probably won't be able to help this face for very long."

They played with the puppy for a few minutes before Tom stood up and messed with his hair. "I should probably go get ready. I still have to drive all the way into Boston."

"Oh that's right," his mom rose with the puppy in her arms, brushing his shirt of sand. "You have a big Valentine's date tonight. Don't you think we should tell Lily about the--"

"No, don't. Not yet."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he yawned and kissed his mom's head, "Its better this way for now."


	40. Dirty Water Healing

**DIRTY WATER HEALING**

**Finn's Bar - Boston**

_January 14th, 1996_

* * *

_She had two hands covering her face and two hands leading hers onto an icy curb, somewhere she didn't even know, somewhere she was entirely too lost to feel comfortable. Even with her self-chosen escorts. _

"_I can't believe you guys. You don't come home for four weeks, and when you do, it's for this."_

"_Why don't you just relax and enjoy the surprise."_

_Lily grumbled something into Jeff's hands as he slid one down to teasingly cover her mouth and prevent anymore harassment of their plot. Tom held her mitten hands gently as he helped her onto the icy sidewalk and towards the corner of the street. It was quiet for this corner, which was unusual, but only because they'd set it up that way. _

_She trembled in Jeff's hand and suddenly shouted, "Are we in Boston?"_

_They laughed and shook their heads at one another. _

"_We are. It smells like Boston. You drove me all the way here. Why?"_

"_You'll see."_

_She only had a chance to sigh one more time, before she felt Jeff lift her completely off the snowy ground and carry her through a doorway, one she could hear swinging back with a squeak. When her boots hit ground again, it was wood, and the air was warmer around her. She felt someone place something on her head, and when she reached up, she giggled, knowing it was a plastic tiara. _

"_What are you guys doing to me?"_

_She could hear their laughter still when something soft was draped around her neck, a feather boa. Her head shook, her brand new heels clacked together like a frightened Dorothy hoping that the munchkins wouldn't attack at any moment. And then, after too much time had gone by, she heard a growling, sensual whisper in her ear. _

"_Ready, Tiger Lily?"_

"_Yes," she sighed exhaustedly as she felt Jeff's warm hands move from her face. Her eyes fluttered open to the scene of a bar, filled chaotically with balloons and confetti and people, lots and lots of bizarrely dressed people. All she could do was gasp with a giggle as they suddenly all jumped out and shouted at her. _

"_Happy Birthday, Lily!"_

_Her hands went to her cheeks as a blaring stereo picked up and a hundred or more bodies of friends and family rushed towards her. She greeted them all in a haze, only feeling one solitary, memorable thing throughout Flynn's bar, and that was the arm that never left her waist. No matter how many people came to her, or how many alcoholic substances were passed around, he was always right there, hooked to her. _

"_I can't believe you did all of this."_

_Jeff smirked and took a sip of his beer, "Twenty-one is a big deal when you have Irish blood running through your veins, kid."_

"_You would know," she mocked as she held onto him tighter, kissing his neck. _

"_And you're about to know even better. Come here."_

_He tugged her through the crowds of half dressed and half sober bodies to get to the bar. Jeff lifted her onto one of the stools, one of their regular stools, and from around the bar came Flynn himself, a man she'd known far too long for anyone just becoming legal. _

"_Flynn," she smiled and leaned over as Jeff held her hips from falling. She kissed his cheek and then sat back down. _

"_This is gonna be the best shot I ever poured, ain't it?"_

_She laughed with a nod as Jeff and Tom came to stand at either side of her, doing the same. _

"_Give her a double."_

_Lily turned to Tom with a dropped jaw. _

"_Double Tullamore Dew, the good Irish stuff you always hold out on," Jeff insisted even louder, making her turn to him instead, shaking her head. "Three double Dews."_

_Flynn laughed wildly and shouted, "No, four," as he poured the shots out for each of them. Jeff and Tom both grabbed one and Flynn slid one close to Lily's hand as he lifted his own in a salute over her head. _

"_To our little Hanson all grown up," she smirked and hid her face in her pink boa as Jeff kissed the top of her head, "May she have another twenty-one years of the same confusion, and sickness and good vibrations that she's about to experience right here tonight!"_

"_Here, here!" Tom and Jeff shouted at the same time, slamming their shots on the wooden ledge of the bar before downing them with Flynn. _

_Lily watched them with wild, spontaneous eyes before she heard the all too familiar sound of the Standell's pick up from a distant corner jukebox and she felt Jeff's arm tie snugly around her waist again, pressing for the only assurance she ever needed. It took one second, and the shot had disappeared into her hungry, excitedly beautiful gut. _

_Then she was asking for another with her tongue half hidden down Jeff's throat. _

* * *

**Chatham – Hanson House**

**One month later – March 22****nd****, 2004 **

_2:37 AM_

* * *

It didn't take much to set Lily off into a fit of tears and tissue havoc. The reasons and causes for it worsened as the days went by. Sometimes it was a song, or the weather changing outside, or the sound of her mother's pill bottles, or even just the way her bare skin felt inside of his long since abandoned PD sweatshirt, the one he'd left here the first time he'd left her.

No matter the infliction, the result was the same. She would rummage through her mother's cabinet of wines and whiskey's until she found something that suited the mood or the memory she was lost inside of. On this night, or early morning for that matter, as she sat at the kitchen table in a pair of his old college boxers and that same ragged blue sweater, she allowed herself indulgence in the one thing that she knew would take care of the pain for as long as she wanted to be numb.

Lily relaxed into the chair, sighing, wiping her nose and pouring a small glass of Jack Daniel's at the same time. As the sunshine golden fluid sank into the crystal glass with a hearty splash, she sniffled and remembered a time when whiskey would have done her in for a week or more, back when she was weak enough and fragile enough to be nothing more than a cop's sister, a cop's daughter, and a cop's girlfriend. Not an assisting firearms specialist herself.

She stopped pouring and instead began to sip at the smooth heartache in a cup. The house was silent, save for a few drips of the kitchen faucet, a gentle breeze blowing against the windows and the sound of a scratching, flopping puppy on the rug under her feet. Lily glanced down with watery eyes and an upturned nose, not wanting to fall for it, not wanting to go anywhere near that issue in her current state.

"_Sparky_," she huffed, rolling her eyes and taking a stronger gulp of the whiskey. "He's crazy if he thinks I'm falling for that. I don't care how cute you are."

The little black dog mumbled with a low moan and tilted head as he stared at her, belly up and arms crooked on the floor.

"Go on and look helpless. It won't work on me."

He turned then and rested on his stomach, his head perched on his paws as he moved his droopy eyes up at her still, sadly.

"No. Don't even try it, dog." One more twist of his head in innocent, loving fashion, and Lily felt her heart strings being tugged despite all attempts to mask it for the last month. She twisted her wedding band on her finger, staring at it as she mumbled between her hand and the dog's face, "You're not Sparky. You can't be Sparky, no matter how hard you try. So stop."

* * *

**8:10 AM**

* * *

There was music flowing from downstairs to the second level that made Debbie Hanson wake up with a sore head and worried dementia. She got out of bed and threw on her robe, checking in Lily's room, which was empty, then into Tom's, to see him stretched out, half dressed and nearly on the floor from his bed. It was unnerving for her most days, to feel the way she had so long ago, all over again, with only minimal explanation or reasoning behind him being back. But she accepted it with complete faith, smiled, shook her head and took off down the stairs for the living room. The music was all too familiar, especially to her, and she even hummed a few of the lyrics as she stepped down into the foyer, walking through towards the kitchen.

_Can't You See, _she thought to herself, confusedly.

She hadn't even made it inside of the kitchen before she saw the sight that answered every one of her questions and probably a whole bunch she hadn't even thought to wonder about. In the middle of the floor, curled up and sprawled out on the rug beneath the table, was Lily. She was wearing clothes that Debbie felt certain she remembered from a different time altogether, from a boy who would most likely never be seen again, unless it was as a grown, broken man. There was a half empty bottle of Jack Daniel's settled in her palm, over head. And the dog that she had been less than fond of the last four weeks, _Sparky_, sat curled up with her, eyes wide and his face nuzzled and resting on Lily's thigh, protecting her.

Debbie shook her head, laughed breathily and then leaned down to lift the bottle from Lily's hand as she heard Tom step behind her with a tired yawn and chuckle.

"Marshall Tucker and whiskey, someone had a rough night--"

They both noticed then that the song turned over and repeated itself from the beginning. Debbie and Tom stared at one another with crooked smiles.

"Guess she likes the song," he whispered to his mom as he leaned down and brushed Lily's hair out of her eyes. "Think I should carry her back to bed?"

"Please," Debbie quietly replied, calling the dog into the kitchen for breakfast. But he didn't come to her like usual. Instead, as Tom reached down and lifted Lily into his arms, carrying her in a sweep towards the stairs, Sparky followed on his heels.

"Where's he going?"

Tom glanced back with a tired grin, "Looks like they've _finally_ bonded. Come on, dog."

Sparky trotted carefully up the stairwell behind Tom, his small legs making him trip a few times before they made it to the end of the hall and into Lily's room. He laid her down on the mattress, covered her with both blankets against the cold March morning, and then reached down and lifted the puppy into the spot just beside her.

Tom scratched him behind the ears, "Take care of my baby sister, Spark." Then he kissed Lily on the head and left the room again for breakfast, haunted by the memories of having told Jeff on numerous occasions a lifetime ago, to take care of his little sister the same.

He always had.

* * *

**Lily's Apartment – Beacon Street, Boston**

**November 30****th****, 1995**

* * *

"_Tell me I'm rushing into this. Go ahead," she threw her hands around as she shuffled through boxes in the middle of the empty living room. "I know you want to say it. So say it."_

"_I'm not saying anything."_

"_Jeff."_

_He paused with a shove of another heavy box onto her couch. _

"_Lily, I have nothing to say. Except that I'm excited for you."_

"_Ha," she scoffed, turning down the hallway for one of the bedrooms with a small crate. He could hear her voice echoing through the empty, open halls and off of the wood floors. "You're mad, I can tell!"_

"_What would I be mad about?"_

"_You're mad because," her voice suddenly fell three octaves as she came closer to him in the living room of the apartment again, "You're mad because I'm not moving into your place instead."_

"_That's not true."_

"_Yes. I know you. I know that's what you wanted."_

_He shrugged and fell down to the floor in a tired heap, sweating and breathing heavily. _

"_See."_

_Jeff just looked up at her, catching Lily's eyes every so often as she tore through things that didn't need to be bothered with, things that could be hung and unwrapped another day. _

"_I'm glad you have your own place, especially since I'm not in town a lot right now. When Tommy and I finish this job, if you want to move in with me then, I'll still want you to."_

_Lily dropped her curling iron back into one of the boxes. She let out an exhausted sigh as she stood over him, feet on either side of his hips and hands on hers. _

"_You promise?"_

"_Don't I always?"_

_Her lips tightened with an innocent glow as she slowly fell down and straddled his lap on the floor, head falling to his chest and hands sliding through his messy, sweaty hair. _

"_One day we'll be sharing so much space, that you'll lose your mind over me."_

"_When we get married?"_

_He laughed, rubbing her back as he turned her over underneath of him instead. _

"_Yeah, and since you've already picked out the house--" Lily giggled as he rubbed his sweaty cheeks across hers, "That means I have to start making plans to fix it now."_

"_Oh please." She shoved on his stomach and jumped back to her feet without him. "You're never going to get that house."_

"_Excuse me?" _

_His voice was testy as he rose to meet her level, looking down into her challenging eyes, backing her towards the kitchen counter. "Is that doubt I hear coming from you Miss Hanson? You know how I feel about being doubted."_

"_What if it is?"_

_He wasted no time in grabbing her waist firmly and lifting her up to the edge of the kitchen's counter as they stepped out of the living room. Lily screeched when she landed with open legs and his tight jeans pressing into her at the marble ledge, where Jeff's lips also met the open curvature of her revealing t-shirt. _

"_I guess we're just gonna have to christen every last inch of this new apartment--" he kissed her breasts over her bra as he tore her shirt away and listened to her sudden moaning, "--until you remember how to believe in me…"_

_Lily laughed and tugged at his hair, forcing his lips to her harder with a tired mew. _

"_That could take a while--"_

_He nibbled at her hardened nipple through the black lace and smiled "…God, it better."_

* * *

**Lily's Apartment – Woodley Park, Washington D.C**

**Three months later -** _June 14, 2004_

**

* * *

**

"Why couldn't Tommy come and help again?"

Debbie ripped off a string of tape and closed one of the boxes in the pile Lily was marking.

"He's been helping across the Cape, working on the old Quinn estate."

Her jaw dropped with a gasp, "He's what?"

"Yeah, I thought he told you honey."

"No. He hardly tells me anything anymore. It's like he's trying to protect me from the world."

Her mother smiled and taped another box before shoving it towards the front doorway of the apartment.

"Well, he worries he's going to offend you, or hurt you I think."

"Why would that hurt me?"

"Your brother knows how you always dreamed of having that house."

"Yeah but, it was just a stupid dream, when I was a kid."

Lily got up from the floor angrily and stomped down the hallway towards her bedroom with Sparky close on her heels.

"I'm gonna go and work on my closet."

"Lillian."

She stopped at her mother's quiet but affirmative tone and turned back.

"What?"

Debbie sighed, not sure what she wanted to say at all. She really just wanted to stare into her daughter's eyes, to capture the sadness she saw there, from between the swollenness and sleepless nights of crying and drinking. She just wanted to see herself from thirteen years before.

"Nothing, sweetheart," she finally whispered, watching as Lily turned into her bedroom with a heavy breath.

Her bedroom, the one with that utterly fantastic view of the park downtown and the capitol at a far distance, was nearly empty now. There were a few boxes, a lone dresser, and her unbelievably full closet of dresses and shoes and jeans and designer suits for the job she'd given up temporarily. There was a lot of history in that closet, but not because it had been made here in Washington, as much as it had begun all the way back in Chatham.

She sighed and walked inside, falling down to the floor in a heap as she began to stuff her numerous pairs of heels and boots and tennis shoes into boxes. She packed up all of her scarves and mittens and hats into separate seasonal boxes. She packed her coats and cocktail dresses and suits into a travelling cardboard closet, stuffing and squeezing everything together with tears trembling at the corners of her eyes for some reason. Then she heard him, softly, in the back of her mind and had to stop momentarily.

"_Do you have to have like, SIXTY different jackets? I mean really, come on."_

_Lily snatched a few of them from his hands and stormed back into her closet. _

"_We can't all be so secure in the same jacket for twenty years."_

"_Clearly," he teased in a mumble that she wasn't supposed to hear. But she did, and because of it, he felt a high heel smack him in the back of the head as he turned away. "Jesus! You're kidding me right?"_

_He turned, rubbing his head with a sour face at her. _

"_Do I ever?"_

_Her glinting smirk made him go mad with lust. Like always. _

"_Oh, you are gonna get yours, kid." _

_He barreled toward her in the closet as she yelped and tried to fend off his pinching, tickling hands. _

Lily shoved the box of coats away across the wood floor, accepting the rush of energy coming over her, the flurry of memories and images and pain in seeing his face so vividly. She felt certain that it would never stop hurting, no matter how much she drank or how much she did to ignore it boiling in her head. He'd always be there.

She growled under her breath and moved inside of the closet again, reaching up high for where she saw a few dusty, old unmarked boxes. When she pulled one though, another on top of it, out of clear view, tumbled down and just missed her head as it fell to the floor in a mess.

"Shit."

She let go of the other boxes to clean up the menagerie the first had made underneath of her. But as she crashed on the floor and began reaching for papers and objects that had rolled out of the box, she found herself in an alternate universe, where everything felt and smelled and tasted like Sheldon Sands. She lifted old letters, a Cracker Jack ring he had once given her as a tease proposal, a small stuffed tiger he'd won for her at the Boston Carnival, and aged photos that told stories over and over again.

Lily gulped and fell against the shelves of her closet, legs tangled and an armful of memories pressed to her chest as she cried deeply into them, letting him whisper to her as though he were actually there.

"_I'm not going anywhere."_

"_Well, maybe you should."_

_She hurried off down the sidewalk in a flurry of tears._

"_You can run away from me, but I'm just going to follow you."_

"_What if I jump off a cliff?" She shouted back over her shoulder. _

_He chuckled and rushed to stomp down right beside her, "Then I'll jump first and catch you as you fall."_

"_You're an idiot."_

"_Okay," he teased as she suddenly paused and threw her angered eyes back at him, "I'll be an idiot. If that's what you want."_

"_What if I wanted you to get lost and not bother with me? Huh?"_

_He shook his head down at her, watching as she wiped away tear after tear from her own guilt, her own satisfactory mistake of thinking that he didn't care the way he swore he did. _

"_I'm not leaving you. That would be like abandoning oxygen underwater. I'll drown."_

_Her brow twisted with a clenched jaw, "Stop that."_

"_Stop what?"_

_Then Lily stomped her foot and fell against his chest for the hundredth time that night. _

"_Stop making me fall in love with you…"_

Somewhere deep inside of her ear, while she cried heavily and moaned with the tears as they echoed through the house, she heard a faint chuckling whisper of, _'No way.'_

Too many glorious and altogether unfair things washed over her as she sat there, reeling in her mind and heart, examining photo after photo. There were ones on his father's yacht, pictures of Jeff and Shane, of her and Tommy, there were Polaroid's of Jeff and Lily half naked and wrapped up in sheets, and there was one that stood out among all the others as what she would forever be undone by.

It was an old Polaroid snapshot of Jeff in his candy cane boxers, standing in the middle of the bed at his apartment, strumming wildly on Hank. That was an afternoon she knew she'd never forget, no matter how many other memories passed her by in the next month, or next year, or decade without him. That one never could.

"_Sing it, baby." Lily fell down on the couch, laughing out of her mind at him on the bed. "Yeah, sing it just like Brad does!"_

_He gave her a twisted smirk. "What, with the girly screams and all?"_

"_Hell yeah," she giggled and threw a pillow across the room at him as he danced around in the middle of the mattress, shaking his ass at her whistling._

_The strumming of his guitar was poetic and deliberate and sexy all at the same time. It made Lily swoon as she jumped from the couch in his old t-shirt and approached the edge of the bed with her camera, waiting and listening as he began to sing to her. _

"_I looked out this morning and the sun was gone…Turned on some music, to start my day…"_

_His knees were bent like Elvis as he worked his hips close to where she was snapping photos. Polaroid's fell to the bed, one by one, slowly forming images in the light of the room as he continued to croon for her and shuffle in his socks with an east side hum. _

"_I lost myself in a familiar song…I closed my eyes and I slipped away…"_

_Lily lifted her hand up high to his face and he bit on her fingers with a soft lick, grinning like crazy from the corner of his mouth as she belted out. _

"…_It's more than a feeling…When I hear that old song they used to play…!"_

Lily sighed with a tiny murmur, _'…More than a feeling…'_ and wiped her tears off of the old photograph before tossing it into the box with everything else. She was halfway back to having it all hidden from sight and mind again when she felt her knees buckle with the sound of her bedroom door opening wider and her mother's voice startling the tears right back to her eyes.

"Lily, honey?"

"Mom," she whispered through her sobs, reaching out when Debbie fell inside of the closet with her and to the floor. She took Lily's hand and hugged her closely, arms tight and kisses warm on her head and cheeks. They sat tangled together, two women at a loss for the world and why God saw so fit to take certain men from their lives all the time, a mother and daughter grieving on impact of the same tragedy.

"Oh baby, I know it's not fair," she brushed through Lily's tangled hair as she heard her mumbling into her shirt.

"It just doesn't make any sense," there was a deep breath and sniffle, "Why wouldn't they just tell us something? Tom has worked for those bastards for the last eight years. Why won't they tell him _at least_, what happened?"

"The CIA is a complicated thing, Lillian."

"That's bullshit, Mom, and you know it. Look what they did to Tommy."

"Yeah," she sighed, rubbing Lily's back, "You're probably right."

There was a long stretch of silence, where only muffled sobbing and the shuffle of limbs together could he heard or known. The sound of taxis down in the street could only faintly be acknowledged, same as the sound of the dog barking at something, and the same as the radio that drifted around the empty, wickedly lonesome apartment. Lily was glad to be getting out of her lease, glad to be moving back home where she had all the sources of healing and spirit lifting she would ever need. But at the same time, she felt there was something she was missing in D.C, something that connected her to the CIA still, the case that had been finished with her help, and the team of agents who had practically disappeared off the face of the earth.

When she'd relaxed enough but not cried quite enough for the day, she lifted her face where it was tucked into her mother's shoulder and neck, and stared with teary eyes up at hers.

"When does it stop hurting?" She asked with a quiet gulp.

Debbie sighed and held Lily's head as if she were a child who had fallen off the swings. She knew exactly what she meant by the question, and knew that she was the only person in her daughter's life who would know what to say and how to say it, all things considered.

"Never," she replied firmly. "It won't stop hurting, honey. It will just get, _easier_, to swallow the pain and move on. You have to take it one day at a time, same as you've been doing."

Lily rested her head back down and fell into desperate agony all over again.

"One morning you'll wake up and everything will just look brighter, and you'll smile. You might even let yourself love again."

"No," she pronounced with an anxious wave of tears. "I'm never going to love anyone else."

"Now you know that wasn't true the first time with Jeff."

"That was the first time."

Debbie stroked Lily's arms where the hairs were raising from nervousness and uncertainty.

"He's my husband now," she glanced down at her ring. They both did, as Lily twirled it over her finger. "That's the end of it. I can't go any further. I don't want to go any further without him, Mom."

_

* * *

_


	41. Dreaming Out Loud

**

* * *

**

DREAMING OUT LOUD

* * *

**Chatham, Massachusetts **

**Four months later - October 11, 2004**

* * *

It was another lonely Monday morning in the Hanson house. There was the scent of wafting coffee beans from a freshly brewed pot, and there was the sound of the dog beside her in bed, stretching and scratching behind his ear as he panted and looked to her with a curious face.

"Morning Spark," Lily mumbled into her pillow as she slid out of bed and reached for her sweater. The dog hopped down and took the lead as they left her room and went downstairs to find the coffee.

She filled his bowl with food and water as she leaned on the counter with her mug, breathing in the warmth of the pumpkin scented coffee, letting it warm her face before she indulged. When she lifted it to her lips to do just that though, from over the rim, she saw something pinned to the cupboard door in front of her, a small note from someone she knew had scratchy penmanship.

_ Lil,_

_Mom__'__s at work and there__'__s fresh coffee. _

_When you__'__re feeling up to it, you should get dressed and come over to the old Quinn place today. _

_We__'__re finishing painting the fence and it will be all done!_

_Love ya,_

_Tommy_

Lily sighed, sipping at her coffee and trying to decide how best to get around the offer. She could just 'not go' and save herself all the pain of having to see that magnificent house all completed and awaiting a family who would love living in it only half as much as she ever could. Or she could drive over there to Brewster, maybe park the car at the docks and walk down the beach with the dog to the house, see it from the back end first, let it all sink in.

_Yeah, _she thought, as she pushed away from the counter and headed upstairs to get dressed, _I can't NOT see the thing all fixed up finally. That would be a crime._

So she got changed into jeans and a warmer sweater since the fall breeze outside was taunting her, even through the window panes. She stuffed a wad of Kleenex into her back pocket, just in case, and then hurried outside into the drive with Sparky, loading him into her dad's old truck the same as most days that he went somewhere with her. Then she turned away for the highway across the Cape.

It was probably the one thing she needed at that point, the closure, the end to a decade of wishful thinking and dreaming and hoping. The wispy scent of early red tide covered her as it blew through the windows of the truck and through the curly hairs on Sparky's ears. She smiled, scratched his head and turned the radio on to the dead middle of _My Father's Gun. _It seemed appropriate, with the way things had turned out in her life, with the way everything had come and gone so quickly, and then come back all over again, and just as fast. It suited her to no end, with the memory of her father constantly shining back at her whenever she looked into a mirror, like the rearview one she sat swiping her chap-stick on in that morning.

Thomas Hanson was still in there, waving back at her beside the other lost faces she'd known.

Eight months had rolled right by in no time, although some days and some late nights, they had felt as equivalent to the eight years prior as anything else could. Lily had done most of her crying, she'd washed herself clean of as many surfacing memories as she could, and now only had the ones hidden deep inside of her, locked up for personal, private moments of curiosity and wish making. She was back at square one in so many ways. Back to where she was before Jeffery Sands decided to come into her life again, for a mere week, and turn it upside down.

She'd let him though. She'd healed him while he was subconsciously healing her, something they both knew how to do for each other so well, that they hadn't even realized it was happening when it was.

Lily turned down Breakwater Road with a timid smile on her face twenty minutes later, humming the fading lyrics to _Masters of War, _and petting Sparky as he crawled into her lap with the slowing of the truck down the coastal curve of the bay.

"Almost there, buddy."

He yawned tiredly and she pulled onto the shoulder of the road closest to the North Brewster docks. She turned the car off, jumped out with the dog on the back end of her bare foot step, rolled her jeans up a few times and took off down to the shoreline. Lily stumbled around in the sand, headed in the direction she knew the Quinn house was, three long blocks of beach further west, and she tossed a piece of driftwood she'd found, out yard after yard for Sparky to fetch.

"Go get it!"

With a flapping tongue and flying ears, he would take off ahead of her, then run back and meet her halfway before hurrying for the stick again, as she laughed. That was something else she'd started to do the last few weeks, at the very end of summer. She had noticed herself laughing, at all kinds of things and people and incidences, stuff that would have made pre-tragedy Lily laugh like mad. It felt good, it felt so raw and real and right, that she couldn't let herself give it up even for her own pride or mourning.

It was a ten minute stroll down the beach, at most, to where the freshly painted fence of the Quinn estate began as promised in Tom's note. The white wash of the stakes in the sand started her careful steps toward the private shoreline property's backdrop. It hit her very suddenly, that her dream for the poor old house had somehow managed to be fulfilled, and she wondered if her brother had something serious to do with the minor changes. Every shutter was painted a patriotic blue from floor one to floor three and there were daisies and lilies growing from one edge of the sandy pathway to the back door of the house. The existence of history had been completely preserved on the estate, the way she had always hoped for it to be, with the exact same bricks on the chimneys and the same woodwork around the porches.

Lily sighed and knelt down to pet the soft puppy at her feet as he panted tiredly.

"What do you think?" His large chocolate eyes and wagging tail on the back of her leg taunted her to smile. "Pretty, huh?" Sparky barked and Lily stood up again, noting every new and improved detail on her fantasy, "Yeah, pretty _expensive_ still."

She grabbed the rigid stick from the ground and swung it back and forth as she walked towards the house closer, calling out for her brother.

"Tom!"

There was no response, but she could hear the engine of a truck from further ahead out on the front street of the property. She eventually tossed the stick away again and let the dog run.

"Tommy! You here…?"

The crash of the waves on the wet shore and the sound of a few mid-afternoon seagulls were all that she could hear in her midst. No return calls or shouts or words of assurance. There were no workers moving around near the house, no more truck engines sounded, and no hope to go on. The only thing that came in the silence of the sea and sand was the single bark of the dog. This was met by another bark, and another, until the barking fell into tune with what sounded like the softly prepared strings of a guitar.

Lily stopped moving and thinking, she stopped breathing and instead aimed for gulping. She thought she was imagining it, like so much else from the last eight months, imagining guitars and whispers and promises and the sound of an old Trans Am. She swore it was a lyrical mirage playing against the haunted waves of this shore and this house. And she told herself this for a minute or so, until she heard a voice to match the strings of those tired, plucked guitar strings.

"_I woke up this morning and the sun was gone_…"

It was a dream, it had to be. That voice had already been locked up a month before, the key swallowed and the memories juggled away for much later review. Not for now, not for today.

"…_I turned on some music, to start my day_…"

No, it couldn't catch her, it can't anymore. The voice couldn't do anything but be a voice.

"…_I lost myself in a familiar song_…_I closed my eyes and I slipped away_…"

A hundred million things passed over her head and none of them gave her the answer or the clue she needed to turn around and see the blank Cape Bay. None of the memories or feelings gave her the strength enough to walk right back down the beach from where she'd come and ignore it. In fact, not only did nothing help, but the voice moved closer to her, came in right behind where she stood, and ushered a fanatical, well-wished breath down her neck.

"…_It's more than a feeling_…"

The strings of the guitar pressed on, the breathing grew warmer and the voice became a mere hum as it wandered in nearer to her neck, sighing against it, resting so closely that she swore she imagined her skin upon another's, someone completely _imaginary_ of course.

"It's your verse, baby. You gonna sing with me?"

Lily shook her head at the muse of the faux man, the faux memory.

"Oh come on," he whispered lightly, kissing her trembling neck from behind. "Sing for me."

"You're not real. Go away, Jeff. Just, go away."

She attempted to make a run for it and step away, but something grabbed her, an arm, just as the strumming stopped. He held her to him, pressed to the heat that shouldn't be and the warmth that wasn't supposed to exist again.

"This isn't a dream. _God_, trust me on that one, kid."

"You're supposed to be dead."

She heard a laugh, but it didn't sound divine or hellish. It just sounded. "Why am I supposed to be dead? Because it makes you feel better to have an easy out with me?"

"Because you died, that's why."

Lily struggled in his arms, not sure whether she was fighting a nightmare or not. Not sure if she would wake up sweating and screaming in the middle of her bed like a child.

"I didn't die, Lillian. I couldn't die. What the hell kind of ending would that be?"

She felt tears welling in her eyes as she fell hard to his touch, "A typical one for me."

"Well, I guess it's good that we're both in this story then, huh?"

She said nothing and only focused on the sound of his breathing, on her neck, in her ear and all over her where she thought only sadness and confusion could linger with his name.

"Now," he sighed and turned around her body, his hand soft on her waist and his face coming into view against the backdrop of her dream house. He landed directly in front of her, a foot taller and five years wiser, his Ray Bans covering his eyes like she remembered so well, his lips twisted into a smile like she loved, and his hair a mess of sweat and exhaustion, cut shorter than it had been in all of her recent memories. He looked like he was twenty five years old again. He looked like he did the last time they had stood on this property together, admiring and concocting and dreaming.

"Are you gonna sing with me or what?"

Because she was on a cloud of impossibility, she let herself nod and wiped away the tears as he began to focus on old Hank between them, and strum lightly for her choral beat. She gave it a few seconds, waiting for him to find the perfect harmony, and then when she got the ghostly nod and smirk from him, she opened her mouth to the lyrics of a distant reminiscence.

"_So many people have come and gone_…"

Her words were slow and fixated as she heard him whisper a soft, _'yes they do'_ and then went on.

"…_Their faces fade as the years go by_…"

"Not mine, I hope?" He mocked as she giggled away the tears, still sure she was dreaming.

"…_Yet I still recall, as I wander on_…"

Jeff nodded with a wild head for the music he was playing so gently against the October wind. And Lily stalled for a long time before she began to sing the next line, giving him just enough clearance to practice his one handed strumming and reach up with his free hand to touch his glasses as she sang.

"…_As clear as the sun in the summer_--"

They were tugged away and Lily choked at the revelation of the one thing that she swore made it an official dream, a complete fantasy. There before her were two blinking, sparkling, functioning eyes, on a man who didn't have the opportunity for such a thing when she'd last seen him. Jeff smiled down at her as he tossed his glasses to the sand and began playing again, pretending as though there was nothing abnormal about him at all.

"Jeff - this isn't--"

"Come on Hanson," he teased, "Stop staring and finish the verse."

"You—your eyes they--"

He smiled with his head turned low towards the guitar, hiding the brown orbs she was certain she saw. The chords of the song he was playing struck every nerve in her body as she reached out for his face, not needing to brush his long hair from his cheeks anymore, and pulled it up to balance in the sky with hers.

"Can I help you, babe?"

Tears fell before the words were washed free of her tongue.

"They fixed you. How did they--?"

"I wasn't broken. They just gave me some of my missing parts back. If there's one thing the CIA is good at, it's providing _impossible_ healthcare…"

She laughed against the rush of sobbing and held her hands over her mouth when the heavy breathing came back to her, the incessant, nervous, unreliable breathing habit of her previous state of mind, the one she'd fought so hard all year to control.

"Can you—I mean…"

He chuckled down at her, "Yes. I can. Can't_ you_ see?"

"I see a dream. Is this a dream?"

"Would I be here if it was?"

She nodded but he shook his head in a disagreeing taunt.

"Will you just finish the verse for me? So I know."

"So you know what?"

He twisted his face at her with a crooked eye and smirk, reminding her of the truth with his delicate fingers strumming away harshly and his lips coming ever closer to hers in the wispy fall afternoon.

"So I _know_. I need to know you're still with me in this thing."

"In what…?"

"…In our story, sweets. It's not over yet."

She caught her breath with a soft laugh and reached out again, this time to grasp at his dirty, paint covered cotton shirt, then at his strong arms, then at his chest and nose, just touching him and feeling him to be sure, to know herself, that this wasn't going to fade away to an alarm clock and nine months before. She had to know she'd been through everything, just to be there with him then, like that, so realistically, so believably.

Lily stepped in towards Jeff, leaning up on her bared tiptoes to reach his warm neck, where she breathed in his musky scent of cigarettes and cheap beer and sandpaper. She smiled and kissed him once before whispering clearly, even in the New England wind and between the crashing of waves, "…_It's more than a feeling_."

He sighed at the touch of her, desperate for it, dying without it, and he let the guitar fall from his hands as he shoved it to his back. He traded it for her body, as his arms consumed her so willingly, so pleadingly and pulled her right into him, as close and warm and altogether lustfully as he could get her. He held her to him, her breath on his neck and her soft curves pressed to his beating heart, like it was a dream, the one she'd begged him to admit to. But he couldn't, because it wasn't, and he knew this when he felt her kisses continue from his neck, to jaw, then right back to where everything bad and good and beautiful and frightening had ever begun for them, at lips.

"Am I going to wake up if I kiss you?"

He breathed desperately against her mouth and shook his head.

"Are you sure? What if you become a frog?"

Jeff laughed in distress, "I think it works the other way around, kid."

"Oh," Lily continued to mock, standing higher to brush her lips against his hungrily, "So you'll become a _prince_ then?"

With a groan he finally urged her, "Why the hell don't you just lay one on me and find out?"

Lily shoved his chest, "Don't be a pain in the ass, Jeffery."

"Don't be stubborn, Lillian."

"I'll be stubborn if I want to. I've been losing my mind for eight months, and now you show up at this old house, with vision, playing your stupid guitar and trying to make me--"

He shut her up, the only way that ever worked on her rambunctious mouth. He forced his down upon it, clamoring it with sweetness and a nibbling passion that she had feared in the back of her mind for so many long months and seasons. Lily felt as though she was being devoured wholly by his lips and tongue and hands on her cheeks, but she refused to deny the sensation.

She could have told herself that she felt eighteen again in that moment, but she didn't. Nor did she feel nineteen or twenty or even a wholesome, untamed twenty-one. Their kisses had never been quite_ that _good at any of those tender ages. This was a kiss designed for a twenty-nine year old, spun through webs of desire and depravation by her thirty-five year old counterpart, the only one she knew she could ever have in life. He was absolutely it.

Jeff's crushing lips on hers subsided to the same distant melody and sweetness as the waves overhead and behind them. He caressed her cheeks until they were warmed from the numbness of the cold and relaxed into a smile as his mouth slid from hers, testing the open waters, not sure if he wanted to be separated again so soon.

"I have to show you something."

Lily shook her head with eyes closed and reached her lips out longingly for his again.

"Fine, one more kiss and then--"

"Okay," she assured him, pulling his face right back to hers as brutally as she could hope for. They were like two fierce beasts that needed one another as the sea needs salt and the sky needs carbon dioxide. They were like an equation that finally got solved, with much deliberation and timid correctness. They were fixed, healed, placed back together at the top of their forgotten wedding cake.

He felt her tongue swirling for agonizing truthfulness against his, and he couldn't stop to deny her anything, not when he knew he needed it all at the same rate of necessity. He squeezed her tiny body to his, grasping and holding every bit of softness and tender flesh he could accept back into his world. His hands ran through her longer, gentler, darker curls, the ones he could see now. He laughed in a guttural groan when he finally felt her fingertips meet the flesh of his lower stomach, tugging at a button that he knew needed to stay closed for at least the time being, if he was going to get anything shared with her.

"_Lily_," he mumbled against her lips, laughing. "Baby, okay, easy does it." He held her face in his hands, struggling just to pry her mouth from his, "I swear to you, that part's coming. Okay?"

She nodded anxiously as he chuckled and took her hand in his, pulling her along up the sandy back pathway of the house.

"Where are you going? We can go back to Chatham, my house."

Jeff shook his head at her innocence, her still confusion in the midst of shock value.

"We don't have to."

"Why?"

"Come here," he thrust his head with a nudging smile, "Come with me and I'll show you."

She had a distrusting eye, but she followed behind him, letting his fingers twist smoothly with hers into that same old perfect fit. Jeff walked her down the sand trail between the daisies and lilies, both of them barefoot, his guitar swaying against his back as they made it to the steps of the whitewashed back porch. He walked her upwards carefully, pulled open the creaky screen door and tugged her even closer to him.

"Did Tommy tell you they were fixing this old place up? Is that why you came to help?"

A wild smirk crawled across his face as he shook his head at her again and opened the door to the warmth of the inside, gesturing for her to go before him. And when she did, when her sand covered feet hit the beautifully waxed wood floor of the large parlor, when her waist was entirely too snug in his hands and her back entirely too comfortable where it rested against his chest, Lily heard his voice in her ear as her eyes picked out the finest of details to the readjusted and re-touched home.

"Tommy was helping _me_, Lily."

"Helping you what?"

"Helping me to get this place ready for you," he hummed with a kiss on her ear. "…For _us_."

"For--"

Her breath caught in her throat as she turned her face back at him abruptly.

"No. You're lying."

"Do I look like I'm in a position to be lying to you today?"

Lily let her body sag in his arms, tiredly, well beyond the point of being shocked or surprised or thrown aback. Now she was just beside herself with the possibility of everything in front of her, and _behind_, for that matter.

"It's designed to your specifications, just like I promised. It's taken us almost six months."

Her jaw gaped as he walked her carefully, his hands on her hips for protection from fainting, throughout the first floor, from the parlor to the kitchen, to the dining room and into the office, all of it empty of furniture and echoing with his whispers and sweet nothings. He stopped with her in the middle of the living room, where the wide bay windows brought in every last bit of sunlight granted to the Cape, sparkling on the walls and floors all around them. Jeff hugged her waist and rested his chin in the crook of her shoulder, where he'd loved to be his whole life and missed more than anything else.

There was peace in the world before he spoke. There was a soft, accepting sigh in her tone. Her hands covered his on her stomach, her head tilted down to the left, locking his in place where he suckled at her neck tenderly, and she closed her eyes to imagine it full of things, and people, and life, and babies, and puppies and warmth.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Sands," she finally heard him hum in her ear.

Lily giggled and wiped away the one existing tear in her eye before she turned in his arms and cradled his face in her hands, with begging eyes and awaiting lips.

"Thank you, _real_ Sparky."

He laughed goofily with a contemplative brow at her.

"It's a long story. See my brother got me that dog outside and--"

"Oh _God_, here you go again." He bent down and lifted her over his shoulder in one quick haul, making her screech just the same as when she was twenty. "No more talking, just screaming!"

"What? Why?"

She gripped the back of his shirt, trying to keep a steady hold while he hurried up the stairwell.

"We _officially_ have four extra rooms to fill!"

She laughed out as she felt him grab her ass tight, nearly jogging up the second flight of stairs, in the echoing house.

"What do you think," she screeched, giggling at his rush from one end of the long hallway to the next, "We're going to fill them all tonight?"

"All I know is we're not quitting until they are, _Tiger Lily_…"

* * *

_Wish fulfilled__**STOP** _

_Dream fulfilled __**STOP** _

_All possibilities overturned and granted __**STOP** _

_Mission aborted for the sole gratification of finally getting to carry your wife up the three floor threshold of her fantasy house, with 20/20 vision, and make love to her until you're sure she's carrying the product of your determination __**STOP**_

_**DO NOT SEND BACKUP, STOP**_

* * *

He could see everything.

He could see the spiraling steps it took to get her to the third floor. He could see the doorway, the wood floors and the curtains blowing against the October breeze of the open windows to _their_ room. Sands could see the only existing piece of furniture in the new house, a four poster bed of cloud-like cotton, turned towards the French doors of the balcony to take in the scaling view of the Bay, just the way she'd always dreamt. And then, finally, he could see her again, when he pulled her from his shoulder to fall into the billowy softness of the bed.

Lily stared up at him and teased, "Interesting how the rest of the house is empty, but this bed was no problem at all…"

"The bed was first priority in my plan," he chided, crawling onto the end of the mattress and between her open, worn denim legs. His hands gripped her hips as he pulled her center hard against his prodding jeans the same, making her heartily gasp out. He chuckled at the dark way her eyes brooded at the long awaited sensation, "For that very reason."

"What's your second priority?" Lily whispered as she stroked his cheeks, staring as intently as she could into the unrealistically full of life and impossibly identical eyes she remembered from so long ago. When she stopped to refocus on her own question, the answer was already grinding comfortably against her inner thigh, where Jeff's fingers tugged at the button of her jeans.

"Next priority is to make sure the neighbors can hear you howling my name. I want them to know," he growled in her ear with a bite of her lobe as he began pulling her jeans from her legs, "That we've finally made it _home_. No more window shopping on the curb."

"I think I can do that."

"Oh, can you now?"

"Yes. Are you going to doubt ME, Sheldon?"

He breathed a laugh on her lips, "Never. I'm ready for the challenge again."

"Good," she replied with a bite on his sweltering mouth, ripping at the button of his jeans next. They were off before he realized how close they'd become after too many lonely days and restless nights. It was like he had finally fallen back to Earth, back to where things actually had the potential to make sense. And he was more than prepared to take it for all it was worth.

Sands slowly yanked her sweater from overhead, followed by her old white t-shirt, where he was entirely too pleased to find the lace he loved, awaiting him evermore. He could see it again, the color, the design and the way it hugged her gently heaving breasts.

"Only lace on my girl," he whispered as he moved down to capture the hardened bud he could see peaking through the black material, suckling through the soft lace until he could see her back arching off the bed towards him. When his name escaped her lips, he tugged the delicate cup of the bra away to return his mouth to her skin, his tongue to the rigid sweetness of her nipple. There, amid the wetness and voracious nerve endings, was his Lily's first zenith of the act.

He witnessed it without a blink.

Her tiny mews and begging made him shudder through the thin confines of his boxers as he sharpened his movement against her pleading axis, where more midnight lace awaited him in the shadow of the distant sunshine. His lips worked wonders over her breast, matching the skill upon the second, until he was far too overcome with desperation to linger so high up. Sands needed to travel, he needed to venture and explore his territory all over again. Lily's fluttering eyes caught short glimpses of his movements, memorable images, like his tongue striking the cool surface of her skin and his wedding band dancing in the light as his hand traced the curvature of her thigh.

It was like no time had passed. No time but the imaginary, the dream like.

"Jeff?" She murmured slightly as he began to rove further down, kissing every tingling inch of her lower stomach. His charcoal eyes that shifted upwards from her skin was response enough as she continued, "Why did you never call? Why did no one ever tell me what happened?"

He wanted to ignore the questions, nowhere near ready to answer them, but realizing as much that it was unfair to even try. His fingers idly played with the waistband of her lace panties as he meagerly attempted to come up with something, the right words; the ones that would best suit. In the end though, his contemplation was worthless, because he was well beyond covering things up or sugar-coating the inevitable for Lily. What was the point of that with someone like her?

"I told them not to. Shane and Jack and everyone wanted to come to you, they wanted to worry you about the operation and the risks and all the bullshit that I couldn't let myself lay on you. I figured that if you had the opportunity to think I hadn't made it, and then I didn't after all, that it would just be easier. You deserved an easy out with death for once, Lil."

She sighed, resting into the heavenly sheets as she felt his warm mouth touch her navel, begging forgiveness without words. "I wasn't going to move on, you know." His hands grew softer around her hips as she spoke, and his chin rested against her stomach, staring wildly towards her.

"I swore I wasn't going any further without you here. I couldn't let myself. Maybe I was subconsciously praying that you'd come back like Tommy, as a ghost survivor."

Sands laughed only gently before he replied, "I'm no ghost. I'm_ all_ here with you, baby."

"What about the agency?"

His head tilted downward in thought as he eased the lace from over her bottom and off her toes, unsure where to begin to think about his job, the one he'd ignored in recovery since March.

"Jeff? Are you going to work for them still?"

"Lily…"

"Tell me."

"I don't want to do anything but wake up in this bed with you every morning and fall asleep here every night. Okay?" Her eyes fell somberly, understanding in nature, and re-collective of the short conversation they had on the morning after their wedding night in the desert of Vegas. "I want to get a boat and sail with you. I want to sit in the sand, play my guitar and have staring contests with you all afternoon, because I can."

She laughed with a teary-eyed sigh.

"The agency took a lot from me and I just got it all back. I won't let them take it again."

Lily nodded and reached her hand down to stroke through his shorter wisps of jet black hair.

"That's all I wanted to know. You can continue now, if you want?"

The devilish smirk at the corner of her mouth was enough to send him reeling to the grave, a happy man. Sands took her hand from where it was lost in his hair and drew two of her fingers into his mouth, swirling them around against his tongue. He slithered his way back between her open, ready, honey smooth legs, as she pushed his boxers down over his hips, toying in fairness with the stark and determined proof of his love. Lily could feel every tiny scratch and scar and battle wound at the enticing dip of his backside, moving her freed hand up along the arc of his spine, counting each of them, remembering a few and studying others. Then she felt a quick stab of pain as he bit down on her knuckles between his lips and lifted her hips from the bed to drive within the chasm of her most heated ability to kill him.

She moaned righteously and he swore he felt his heart fall from his chest. He examined her intently, taking advantage of the view he now had, and watched as the blue waves in her eyes crashed against the imaginary shores of the Cape Cod that was lost inside of her. He was buried there too now, all over again, to the hilt of existence where all things were warm and sunny and predictably unpredictable. Sands groaned against her cheek, cradling Lily in his arms as he slowly dipped back out, kissing the sunlight from the freckle on her temple.

"_Sweet God_," his voice in her ear brought her even higher as she sunk under his eyes, "I might not be dead but I think I'm getting close--"

"What did I do wrong now?" She sighed with a deep breath.

"Not a damn thing. I wished you'd do something wrong for once. I wish you'd stop being so insanely, fucking perfect for me."

Lily laughed back a tear and clung to his neck as she urged him to return to the wanting depth of her. He obliged with an immediate spell of promise, submerged in ecstasy and moisture that left him without a clue, a pounding heart and quivering howl to match.

"That was--" he waited for it, drawing his hips smoother against her as she caught her breath. "That was good," she finally exhausted, pinching the skin on his shoulder blades, "But I know you can do better than that, Sparky."

Sands shook his head, consumed by the amazement of that one clear statement, that truth washing over her beautiful exterior.

"You have a cruel tongue, Lillian Hanson." She smiled with stars in her eyes and held onto him for life as the penetrating words left his lips to touch hers, "And I'm a goddamn fool for ya."

"Oh, well don't I know it."

It was an abrupt end to a perfect conclusion, when he began to suddenly pummel her body, maul over every inch of her, driving harshly within and tenderly back out, covering his solidly satisfied cock from one corner of her endlessly boiling form to the very next. He never shut his eyes, even when he felt it was inevitable and necessary. They were as wide as the day he first saw her in the light of her mother's kitchen, as wide as the afternoon he'd first watched her sail his father's yacht beneath his own hands, and as wide as the night he'd first kissed her mouth. To close his eyes now would be criminal, and even though Sheldon Sands was still a mean man, a frightening force of nature with a gun and a cocaine hit list, he wasn't that way as she moaned—

"…_Jeff_ yes. _Please_..."

A lot of women had said that, but a lot of women had called him other things and made him feel other ways that he didn't like as much as he had convinced himself he did. A lot of girls had clung to skin and kissed his lips and shouted his praises in the throes of pulsating glory, but none of them had a silver tongue like his one girl, his wife. None of them had the knowledge enough to squeeze their thighs against his hips as he rocked to the exact rhythm of the sea outside and his own oncoming release. None of them had ever known how to say just the right things to make him topple over in lust and pain combined.

"…_take me, have all of me_…" she whispered with her sweet liberation.

And he felt his toes tingle against the white cotton, his grip tighten on her waist to glue the surface of her skin to his alone, then he let the indigo waves in her eyes carry him away.


	42. EPILOGUE: Can't You See

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**EPILOGUE:** _Can't You See_

**Brewster, Cape Cod – Two weeks later**

**October 27th, 2004 – **_11:15 PM_

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"What do you think? Are your boys capable of taking it home finally?"

Lily shuffled across Jeff's back, under the same twisted sheets she'd been confined to for almost two weeks, between bathroom and food breaks, and late night swimming in the Bay. She kissed his bare shoulders and then nibbled on the last bit of banana pancakes he'd made for her. She had to admit, he was right, they were an addicting sort of oddity.

"I think they'll screw it up."

"Well Jesus, aren't you just the epitome of martyrdom to your team. You know they're ahead by three, babe?"

She sighed and ruffled his messy, shorter black hair. "Yeah, but it's the Red Sox. They always find a way to break our hearts. Trust me. The bottom of the eighth at game four of the series, with a three-nothing lead, isn't going to change anything."

He shook his head as she rolled off of him and threw on his old t-shirt, dancing in front of the TV as the speakers of the St. Louis stadium began to blare, _Sweet Caroline_. Jeff sat up, intrigued, delighted by the show and altogether too hard again for words or gestures. He just wanted her to get back in the bed and let him ravish her back into trusting that Boston could pull a win.

She teased him though, with pouty lips and sweet lyrics flowing out of her all too knowingly, corrupt and dirty mouth.

"_Hand__…__touching hands__…__reaching out_," she reached for him and stroked his bare shoulders at the edge of the bed, "…_touching me__…__touching you_…"

And then together, as she fluffed his sexed in hair and twirled around in his wrinkled old shirt, they shouted, "_Sweet Caroline_…" and the universe temporarily bowed down to them. But it was interrupted with laughter and a kiss on his even more hungry lips, before she scooted through the bedroom door and down the box ridden hallway.

"Where the hell do you think you're going, it's the top of the ninth? And I need you!"

Jeff fell back to the middle of the large bed in agony, grunting out her name teasingly as she shouted back, "Give your hand a workout while I use the bathroom." And then she slammed the door shut and he could hear her laughing.

He rolled his eyes instead, slid from the bed with a sheet tied at his waist for unnecessary modesty in his own house, and then took the sticky pancake plates down three flights of stairs to kitchen, trying to occupy himself until she could occupy everything else again. He washed the plates, swept the sandy kitchen floor, took the dog out (so named for him, as he'd eventually let her tell the tale), and then came back inside to refill their wine glasses and return upstairs to the bed and the game and her undeniable skin.

Lily was still in the bathroom though when he walked down the hall.

"What the fuck are you doing in there?" He banged on it with a free fist and kept walking towards the bedroom. "Hurry up, Foulke's pitching the bottom of the ninth!"

There was no response and no emergence from the bathroom. Jeff made it back to the bed, slouched against the pillows with a steady hand on his wine and an even steadier 'eye' on the game. The one thing that he'd failed to mention to Lily right away was that his sight had come back to a halfway point of understanding. His left eye had refused to cooperate with the insanely risk engulfed procedure they'd used him as a lab rat for, so he could only see vividly through his right eye, which despite it, was plenty more than enough for him.

He looked at the clock above the TV to see that it read 11:38. She'd been in bathroom for twenty minutes. His attention was taken back to the game though, the moment he got up to go bang on the door some more. There was a fool from the Cardinal's batting club running clear across the bases, one by one, going at it strongly too.

"Fuck, no! Get him, get him!"

He yelled at the TV, caught up in the thrill of watching so much, that he barely noticed the sound of the bathroom door creaking open, or the red painted toenails that carefully walked back into the bedroom beside him, attached to the legs that held up the mold in his old shirt, and held onto something that was better and altogether more thrilling than any third base retirement.

"Jeff?"

Coming down off of his high, but still going strong on adrenaline with his furious calls to the plasma screen, she tried him again, more nervously, with a tap of her foot on the wood floor.

"Sheldon?"

"What, babe? You're missing this. The game's ridiculous."

He laughed and his eyes flew back to the screen as she muttered, "I bet I can top it."

"Huh?"

"Jeffery, stop and look at me."

She tugged on his face, narrowing his gaze from the screen back to her as they stood in the middle of the new pitching line up, what would be the _last._

"I need to tell you something."

She was squeezing his cheeks so badly, his lips were curled beyond speech capability, but he mumbled through all the same, "_Tell me_…_quick_."

Lily lifted the pregnancy test from her side and held it up for him to see the tiny pink plus, while in the back of his mind, he allowed the sports caster's voice to filter in with the details he was missing on the screen behind him.

'_Foulke to the set, the 1-0 pitch here it is…'_

"See that?"

He nodded with a wide-eyed fish face in her hand.

'_Swing and ground ball…stabbed by Foulke!'_

"You got me pregnant. Are you happy now?"

He nodded a second time with a faint smile crossing his lips as she released his numb jaw.

'_He has it; he under hands to first…and the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions!'_

And just as Jeff went in for the kill and leaned down to kiss her madly for the news, Lily's eyes flew wide open and her face was directed at the TV screen with wild optimism and disbelief.

"What?!"

'_For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball's World Championship! Can you believe it…?"_

Lily's head shook in a craze as she screamed at the top of her lungs and threw her body into Jeff's unsuspecting arms. He laughed as he caught a tight hold of her, not caring one bit that she was depriving him of proper oxygen with her swarming arms around his neck, or her ravishing lips all over his mouth and face. That was the pinnacle for him, the one he'd waited so long to get to and never was sure how it would truly arrive.

"We're having a baby," he whispered into her ear, as he swung her around their bedroom.

And the thing that convinced him that she was his girl and no one else's, that everything was right and just and fair and beautiful in the world after all this time, was when he heard her shout with tears in her eyes and her mouth pressed to his, "I know and we just broke the curse!"

Then she jumped out of his arms and danced around with him to _Dirty Water_ and he knew that there was a balance somewhere, in the center of existence, where all great things come to the crest in one long, glorious spark, like lighting on a rooftop and fireworks off the Cape.

He twirled her around and she came back to him at last, pressed to his chest and staring up at him with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen, since 1996 at least. She was a sight, the one he'd waited for, the one he'd begged upon when going under the knife.

Her eyes were brightened with a curious glow when she said with a salute, "Sparky, let's make love for the Red Sox."

"_Christ_," he sighed as he lifted her from the ground and carried her back to the bed, "How the hell did I ever get this lucky?"

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